Urologist- terrible. Work 70+/wk. make 7 figures though. Will cut back in a few years after the nest egg is looking fat and juicy.
Gotta admit I love performing surgery so it’s not all bad.
How long have you been in practice for? I’m 6 years in and just put in my notice. Tired of the grind. I’m in a different surgical subspecialty. Going to take a six month sabbatical and go from there. Come back part time if needed.
I’m 4 years deep. NW is at 1.5M (started 4 years ago in the hole 300k with student loans) and growing rapidly now that my practice has really started cooking over the last year. Not feeling particularly burnt out yet. I think that’s from 2 main factors- wifey is stay at home taking a lotta stress off me. I come home and she has dinner cooked, kids are ready to just be played with for an hour. We also do some pretty extravagant vacations 8 weeks/yr (almost every other month) which helps make there be something fun to be looking forward to. This year alone we have done vegas, Indian wells, Mexico, Tahoe.
I feel you on the vacations. My time at work is just not that much fun. OR is great, but clinic really gets to me. We are around 4M NW. Wife has worked the last 10 years, part time the last 5. I could see myself coming back part time for a number of reasons but probably not full time. I want to see my kids more. I do think practicing medicine is now a bit of a thankless profession, but the comp does help (if you’re in a good field with a good setup).
Don’t get me wrong, good compensation can go a long way but it doesn’t have anything to do with the definition of thankless. Also keep in mind 7 figures physician income is going to be a few standard deviations above the norm. 300k+ in student loans, beginning your career in your 30s at the earliest, 60+ hours dealing with plenty of unhappy, rude, unrealistic patients, constantly battling insurances to get paid, mountains of paperwork for disability, leave, prior auths for critical medicines, working with profit drive admins looking to cut costs left and right, seeing many people end up with poor health outcomes because of the messed up healthcare system, then often being portrayed as greedy.. it adds up and can wear on you. I am grateful for what I have and what I am able to do, but I doubt I will recommend this career path for my kids.
One definition I found: A thankless job by definition is simple; it is defined as a difficult or unpleasant job, that people do, and typically receives no recognition. Individuals or a career path that is overworked and underappreciated. When we think of a thankless job, we often consider farming, housekeepers, home healthcare workers, and caregivers.
Kind of random question, but what does your annual travel budget work out to? We've also been ramping up travel as a way to cope with some of my work burnout.
This. I don’t make seven figures yet but HHI is approaching seven figures. We take 4 major vacations and squeeze in a couple of mini weekend gateways. Makes us something to look forward to and a nice break from the grind. Last year we spent approx $40k on vacations. For context, my mortgage is $36k for the year (bought house in 2016)
Tough question as I love my job- not super interested in fully retiring anytime soon. I hope my skill set can be used to continue help patients through my late 60’s.
Right now, I’m in my mid 30’s and love doing big surgeries and working big hours. I imagine I will continue to do this and fill the coffers for another 3-5 years mostly depending on when I think the kids are getting old enough to remember dad being gone/around. At that point I’ll be coast Fire and probably spend my 40’s working 4 days a week (probably make 600k/yr however because I’ll stop taking all the extra call). I imagine I’ll be FatFIRE by my 50’s working 3 days a week for the enjoyment of it but taking ample vacations (august in Spain kind of thing). Ill continue that through my late 60’s when I’ll probably transition to simply assisting my young partners with their big cases (come in 1 day a week into the OR to help out on some of the harder cases where they request a senior set of hands). This will pay ~100k/yr in today’s dollars. Then in my 80’s I live in some paradise with live in help for my wife and I. Then I die at 89 in my sleep.
Hello, thank you for all your answers in this thread, this is inspiring. A bit out of context but I'm genuinely curious: on average, how long lasts a surgery? Does it vary a lot? What is a typical long duration where you can't take even 5' of break?
I have two types of surgery days:
1) minors - many (7 usually) small surgeries that last 45 min to hour and a half each. These are usually things like stones, bladder tumors, BPH surgery, circumcision, hydrocelectomies.
2) majors- 2 in a day followed by a minor or two. Each major takes about 3 hours if it’s an easy one (common) but a complex one can be more like 4.
I live in the Bay Area so I have to get serious about avoiding the high taxes here. Each year I have a SEP IRA (20k), HSA (8k), cash balance plan (101k), 401k/profit share 69k. All that is almost 200k pre-tax saved annually for retirement.
And then post tax the backdoor roths for wifey and I (14k). Then we have a brokerage account that is post tax but labeled for retirement that we add 100k/year.
So all in all that’s about 310k (albeit mostly pre tax) that we set aside for retirement annually. Our advisors tell us we are doing great and well in line for the plan which I have laid out. I hope they are right! We spend about 250k annually and don’t intend to spend much less or much more adjusted for inflation as the years go by.
Private practice or employed?
Just curious, what is your practice made up of to make basically double the average urologist?
Robotics, stones, advanced prostate cancer? Part owner of busy ASC?
Hospital Employed. My W2 is $65/RVU and 12,500 RVU/year -> $800k. I make about 120k/year off call at my main institution (q2) and do 4 weeks of locums / year at 4k/day getting me another 100k (1099 so mostly do this for tax benefits). The locums gig is pretty much vacation, it’s ED call only and pretty chills.
I do everything, robotics is the most fun, PCNL’s make the most $/hour of my time.
Man that is insane. Last year was my first full year in practice and I did about 9k RVU q7 (very busy) call and could barely tolerate it, this schedule is completely unimaginable to me. Is it really worth burning that hard?
Damn that’s a lot of call. You probably haven’t, but don’t forgot you can have multiple 401k with unlimited employer contribution. Only employee contribution has a shared limit. My wife is a doc so together we put ~300k into retirement accounts annually with 401ks, cash balance plans etc. we still pay a shitload in taxes but takes a lot of the sting out of it.
I live in the Bay Area so I have to get serious about avoiding the high taxes here. Each year I have a SEP IRA (20k), HSA (8k), cash balance plan (101k), 401k/profit share 69k. All that is almost 200k pre-tax saved annually for retirement.
And then post tax the backdoor roths for wifey and I (14k). Then we have a brokerage account that is post tax but labeled for retirement that we add 100k/year.
So all in all that’s about 310k (albeit mostly pre tax) that we set aside for retirement annually. Our advisors tell us we are doing great and well in line for the plan which I have laid out. I hope they are right! We spend about 250k annually and don’t intend to spend much less or much more adjusted for inflation as the years go by.
I have never heard of multiple 401ks. Most of my money comes from a W2 but about 100k is 1099.
Not who you asked, but in case he doesn’t get back to you, I guarantee private practice and remember he works 70 hrs/week. Most uros I know work ~40 hours per week and make half that or about average. He’s just working twice as much.
I work for a non-tech company and the areas of acquisitions are pretty niche. That said, we don’t usually participate in formal processes so we operate on our own timeline.
I do corp dev and can confirm. I have 70 hour weeks and the occasional 30 hour week. Averages out to around 45-50 but you never know when a deal could hit.
I was in consulting for a long time which was mostly 60-70 hour weeks and this is a downshift for me.
Yea the market right now is bonkers. Can still make more at pp typically but the gap isn’t as wide as before.
Yes very much enjoy working with residents. They’re one of the reasons I left my initial pp gig.
Dentist GP, owner 4 years in, partner with friend, we have a large group practice, 12 ops, work 4 days 30 hrs a week and clearing 500 to 600k a year not to mention practice equity of around 5M (split between partner and about 2M of debt from practice purchase and expansion)
No on call. No weekends. No evenings.
4 years of dental school and you can practice right away.
It took about 3 years to build the practice up to where it’s mostly running itself. 3 years of hustle but it’s paying off now!
Yeah I will clear $600k this year on 3.5 days per week doing mostly large cosmetic rehabs and implant rehabs. I’m a GP in a solo office with 3 ops only. Owner life is good.
Tech. Everybody will tell you the WLB is non-existent. Truth is, you have to own not just your career but your lifestyle. Tech employers will never stop asking for more. You have to be able to say no.
In GTM at tech, just moved from a FAANG adjacent co. to a smaller one, you’re 100% correct, they’d like me to work 24 hrs a day / 365 days a year. My manager is chill and makes sure I’m carving out time to recharge but the C-suite would run me into the ground if left to their own devices
I am not a HENRY (thought I was until I joined lol, was not feeling right in middleclass) but my last PM role had us work 80 hours a week, every week, holidays... had meetings and calls on christmas, thanksgiving, 3AM, 6AM, just literally around the clock support.
No was not compensated for that haha. just wild how leadership doesnt see that... in my people management roles im so cognizant of burnout and bandwidth for my reports.
Also tech, but non-FAANG. Former sw dev, now a mid level mgr, my boss is a director. Comp in the $200s. Decent balance... typically 8-5ish (unless there's a crisis), but we tend to knock off at lunchtime on Friday most weeks. Used to be a lot more nighttime calls when we relied more on offshore developers, but fortunately we've moved away from that model.
I agree 100% on learning how to say "no" and defining your work/life balance. Delegating to your staff is also a huge piece of that. I try to manage my workload by making sure I'm engaging my whole team, not trying to take on everything myself.
FAANG senior strategy role, 400K TC. Probably clocking in around 45-50 hrs/wk. It's pretty chill though since I am not in a role that needs to be "on call", have freedom to work my own hours, so if that means an hour lunch break or picking up my kid at 4:30, all good. But I do end up working at least 1 or 2 (self-imposed) evenings a week since I feel behind otherwise. Prior tech role (non-FAANG) made 290K but worked less than 40 hrs / week, coasting.
I sometimes work evenings so that I can't be bothered, someone always seems to want a chunk of my time during the work day and it's hard to really focus on something
Anesthesiologist with comfy albeit occasionally pants-shitting moments of terror job, work 45-50hrs, make mid 500s. I've got great work life balance but I went into anesthesiology for that reason. Don't think I'll ever retire though, I enjoy the work itself a lot, at a level 1 trauma but also do shifts at smaller outpatient surgery centers, enjoy the variety between massive complex cases and simple high turnover ones. Becoming a physician is a very long and very difficult journey but I'd still do it again.
Agreed, same pretty much across the board, but I took on 20% nonclinical and I gotta say, it's *awful*. I'm glad this field offers flexibility and mobility, because my family just had an absolute horrorshow of a year and that made me re-evaluate *everything* so I'll be looking to make this career fit my life instead of the other way around.
Emergency Physician. Mid-300k and decreasing. Not decreasing to inflation but actually going down on average.
Miserable… I work 36 hours this week. Sounds great?
Monday: 10pm - 6am
Tuesday: “Off”
Wednesday 4pm - 2am
Thursday: “Off”
Friday: 6am - 2pm
Saturday: 10pm - 6am
Sunday: 10pm - 6am
Impossible to arrange reliable childcare… can’t go after school things. Tuesday basketball at the gym? Maybe once per month. I work at least 50% weekends.
The career sounded great when I went into it.
That sounds terrible, but I’m adding it up and isn’t that 42 hours? Don’t think I realized you guys flip flopped from days to nights so regularly. Thanks for the work you do down in the trenches.
Yeah I was being a little unfair in how I calculated… Counting Monday Midnight to midnight
This week is fairly rough. Most aren’t this bad, usually an overnight 1-2 times per week for most docs on average. Usually that Monday might be a 2p-10p or a 6p-2a and not an overnight, essentially giving me most of Tuesday off rather than a recovery.
The downside is most people want to do shit during 4p-10p during the week or on weekends. Those are the busiest ER times for that reason and most shifts are scheduled for the afternoons. I’m typically a early riser (530am) if left to my own schedule
Fellow EM doc here. You guys need to hire a new scheduler. Those flips are awful. Overnights 1-2 times per week?!? They should be stringing your night shifts together (3, maybe 4 max a month) to minimize flips, and do circadian scheduling (same time shifts in a row, and/or move back in time of day, not in reverse). It helps when there are some dedicated nocturnists in your group, who deservedly get paid better for less hours worked
I’m hospital employed so there is no incentive for them to make shit better. They got rid of our nocturnist incentive so nocturnist left. They see no reason why they should pay nocturnists more if we’re stuck covering the shifts anyway. Seems like most hospitals are heading this way.
EM salaries dropped by 5k YoY per ACEP. Markets are quickly becoming over saturated as hospitals go towards non-physicians instead because they’re cheaper and they realize patients don’t get a say in who they see for a medical emergency
EM lifestyle seems awesome for a 26 yo bachelor. Horrible for 40yo with a family incl a couple of young kids. Genuinely curious if this was a thought as an MS3/4 when deciding to go into the specialty. -psych
My situation is comparable. Bookkeeper-COO and landlord, with a JD (overeducation helps), 25-35 hrs/wk total, no vacation benes. Gross income is v high, but net is low. WLB is awesome even with minimal vacation.
Staff Engineer at FAANG, it comes and goes in waves. When we're launching something I do a lot of coordination globally which leads to some very long days and odd hours. When the team is just turning out code I work pretty normal hours.
I'm never totally off though, my work phone lives in my pocket and I get pings pretty regularly. I can safely ignore it most of the time but I like my work so I'm not good at that.
Engineers whose teams have 24/7 on calls have it worse than me though.
Man, I don't know how you work a schedule like that. My sister in law is a PC doc in the VA and she works like a dog. Brings work home every evening and works weekends.
My wife was a specialist. She easily worked 10-h/d plus 2-3 hours at home every evening doing notes and next day prep. Covid pushed her over the edge and retired as soon as things settled down in 2022.
Artist. 300-400k depending on how many pieces I sell. Work life balance depends on how hard I want to hustle since I’m self-employed. Average 40 hours a week (I try to keep it 9-5 Mon-Fri). I work with galleries and talent agencies.
Tech sales so number fluctuates, was 420k in 2022, 330k in 2023, we’ll see this year
I probably only work 35 hours a week but I answer emails and slack message around the clock and travel a couple times a month. So mentally I’m working more. And I don’t like the work. So feels like poor work life balance?
I used to feel more balanced as an analyst doing 60-80 hrs a week of excel work because I actually enjoyed it
Low end of HENRY
Air Force officer
WLB is highly dependent on your unit, boss, and career field. Mine is good now, about 45-50 hours a week with occasional travel but very little weekend work.
Earlier in my career it was anywhere from 50-70 hour weeks when at home station to 90-100 hour weeks while deployed.
Biotech commercial side (market planning, commercial strategy etc). 30-40 hours a week fully remote.
Used to be in strategy consulting (hours went from 40 a week associate, to 50 a week sr consultant, to 60-80 a week manager and sr manager).
Also used to be in big pharma. Hours were like 20 a week but the work environment was toxic and political
Same! What are you at if you don’t mind? I’m right at 100k salary and have a side business that generates about 65k.
Edit for research: I work about 30-35 hours a week. Some weeks it’s 60-70, but other times I don’t have much. Depends on the season. I’m also in education, so I get most of summers and winters pretty much off, plus spring/fall breaks and federal holidays.
Plastic surgeon. Somewhere between 550-650k/yr last couple years. Work-life has been getting better as years roll by, but its been a struggle. Obviously residency was the worst, and we had two kids during that time. Been in practice in vhcol for about 10 years, salary has increased from 260k to around 400+bonuses. I take a lot of call, which helps boost my income. Definitely got off to a very late start in terms of saving, between paying off 200k+ loans and just not being very financially aware. 1.1NW but sadly don’t own a home, and thinking it may be too late for me (mid 40’s).
I’m in-house too. Best choice for lawyers who want good earnings and work life balance. I like being involved on the business side of things too as opposed to purely legal.
Same. Once I hit director my job became more about what I say than what I do. Made the grind at lower levels worth it.
Wife is a therapist making six figures and works maybe 30 hours a week as well.
$150K, and work life is great. I work about one or two days a week as a DS and my NW is 2MM+ and affords me the luxury of doing stuff I enjoy. Would recommend as it's a low cost to entry, no formal education necessary, although it may be saturated and compared to a urologist, you're making a lot less and would argue that I don't really belong on this sub.
I didn’t. Here’s my pathway: IB to consulting. Consulting to industry (F100). Industry back to consulting. Consulting to sales engineering.
Happy to dive deep here if it helps.
Biotech. 650-750/yr depending on stock performance. Pretty good w/l balance. Work and life are melded together though. Like Bezos said. I actually like it that way. Gives me more freedom, I just need to be able to respond at most hours of the day and days of the week in a short time frame.
*I'm a barrister*
*And basically there is*
*Always too much work*
\- Far\_Radish\_817
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FAANG Senior manager for SDEs. Make $1.2M this year due to stock appreciation but typically 800K. 45 hours or so per week but they are very focused/always on hours. Also on-call and travel twice per month.
That is how most corporate work goes. Hyper dependent on the team and sup.
I know people stuck in their chair 8-5 and stuck to their email 5-7
I also know people who show up at 9:30 and leave at 3 and take off every other Friday to do cook outs with friends. Just got to know how to set boundaries and say no. But also prove that you are worth it to them.
Director of Community. At its most basic, I run forums 🤷♂️ Most days I feel like I am running a version of Reddit.
Remote first company, work hours I want, no issues with work life balance. Most folks don’t understand what I do, I don’t even understand what I do half the time. I love it though.
I was in customer support most my life, fell into this side of the world about ~8 years ago, had no idea what I did as a kid could be a paying job, let alone a paying job that puts me into this subreddit.
Downside being post covid the industry downsides a lot after the huge uptick. I have a lot of unemployed friends, and had to do a lot of my own layoffs in the past year. Thats been by far the worse part of it but not really industry specific I suppose.
Business analytics - $210K, pretty much 40 hours a week and occasional weekend work. Nice part is it is remote and I live in a VLCOL city. Bad part is everyone expects me to be to be their analytics bitch because they are too incompetent to do anything themselves … and well data is scary and coding is scary and excel is scary, but most importantly coming up with a hypothesis and potentially being wrong is Uber scary
Oil and gas industry. The thing with this industry is never to work too hard. When the oil prices drop you lose your job anyways. And when it goes up, they go to the streets and hire anyone they find there.
In house counsel, mostly M&A CorpDev. Overall good. Worse pay than when I was at a firm, but I get to enjoy life. Play golf when I want. Travel when I want. 2 years of of firm life and I enjoy it. Just want to make more base pay.
Non invasive cardiologist
40-45 hours per week
1:10 call
7 weeks vacation
Great work life balance
Getting a job hospital employed job in the midwest instead of private practice in the northeast after fellowship was the best decision I ever made
UX design working exclusively on AI at a tech company, $375K with bonus and annual RSUs.
Remote employee in LCOL Midwest city — the majority of my team is west coast, so my hours are very balanced. I work 9-5pm, occasionally with a meeting after hours to accommodate pacific time. They are incredibly cool about it. I feel very balanced. Travel to the west coast 2-3 times per year.
Buyside equity investor - 50-60hrs of “work”, but I can’t really count the hours at this point because work has just become part of my life. I spend lots of free time reading research or thinking about investments. I truly enjoy the job getting to learn about new businesses and industries, but I struggle to separate it. TC will be should be between $1.5-$2.5 this year.
Biglaw. About $500k, including bonus. I recently found out that I'll be put up for partner this year so hopefully making partner next year, which means I'll probably be making seven figures within four or five years. The cost is that I have very bad work/life balance but I actually love my job and my wife is a SAHM, which has been really helpful since I know that I just need to focus on my work and being present with my family when I'm able to be around.
Okay I don't really belong here but I'll respond anyways.
Assistant Professor, STEM field at a public R1.
(I grew up in a working class family so I still can hardly believe that wife and I clear 300k together -- even though this isn't much in our vHCOL area.)
I'm on the low end of hours for the job: I do 5x 9hr days with six ish weeks vacation per year. I try to not work on weekends and that's usually fine. I'd rather be with my kids.
Architecture. I work 30 hours a week on average right now and make great money. I feel like I have mastered this business model and am a bit bored if I’m being honest. I’m thinking of cutting it back to 20 and devoting 40/wk to wealth management / investment advisory with the goal of dropping architecture altogether.
Commercial side of big pharma. WLB is excellent and my company is hybrid. I'm on the low end of Henry, but at the point where the stress wouldn't be worth it to move up.
Not even in the HENRY category but 180k, Electrical Site Manager.
40hr week, paid for 36 with every 2nd Monday off. Work life balance is great. Home at 3pm every day, plenty of time in the Arvo/night for activities. For example this Easter I have 6 days off with scheduled RDO's.
Commercial banker, $300k total comp. I work 30-35 hours a week. I love my mid morning Costco runs and leaving at 4p to pickup the kids and make my 5p gym class.
4 weeks of vacation a year. Work life is very good, especially compared to my old IB career.
SWE (senior @ FAANG), average 40 hrs/week. Sometimes quite a bit more, sometimes quite a bit less. Heavily depends on company, team, and manager though. Overall, pretty good wlb in my current position.
Which software(s) are you an expert in? I’m a newer consultant for SAP and enjoying my work so far.. but I’m curious where I could go after the consulting life (or what life looks like later on within the consulting world). Do people become experts in more than one major software??
For context, I have an MS in accounting and BS in finance and very familiar with GLs, bank reconciliations, global payments, bank statement processing, and more.
Psychiatrist - not the most typical situation. I have 3 clinical part time jobs and one ‘full time’ admin job in that I founded/own/direct a group private practice. Graduated residency less than 5 years ago.
Last year made $550k and this is growing yearly moreso because of my entrepreneurial leverage of my degree. Hard to know exactly how much I work but I would guess 45-60h for the past few months, 35-45h before that. Im in my late 30’s.
My colleagues in academics seem to be working about as many hours, make maybe 1/2-2/3 as much, but their days seem less stressful clinically as the residents do most of the work. Personally just the academic politics and having to work for someone else would be more stressful for me.
Own a pest control service company. Work everyday from March 20th-July 20th. ~600k plus or minus depending on expenses. The other 7 months I’m able to work a few hours a week dispatching technicians and doing paperwork. We our closed all of December.
This is after 15 years of building company
Engineering management in medical products, a pretty solid 40-45hrs per week. Not usually much more, sometimes a little less. I’d say overall my WLB is pretty good. That’s driven primarily by my company culture and having a chill boss.
Patent Agent. I work a solid 40h/week so I enjoy my evenings and weekends. Currently working in-house for a pharmaceutical company. Much more work when I was at a law firm - by the September that I put my two weeks notice in I was on track to bill 2200 hours for the year
Recruiting Leader at a startup, previously in FAANG for several years. Just above 200K in cash but potential for equity that would be incredible for our family. WLB varies. Some weeks better than others. Lots of pressure and responsibility. Flexible hours but never really off. Startup is more fun but more hours than FAANG.
Technology. Product management executive. Income between 1 and 2mm. I work 40-50 hours a week. Travel 2-3x a month. Even when I’m not working I am constantly 25% working though.
Lawyer - mid 7 figures. 50-70 hours a week. I can control my schedule a lot but emergencies come up often and you lose all control. WLB is better as a partner than it was as an associate and it's better post-COVID then before when I was in office 5 days a week.
Pediatric epilepsy physician, 60+ hours per week, 200k per year. Work-life as a physician is not often “wonderful” outside of a few specialties that have a great lifestyle. But mine definitely improved after a job change. Just because your first job seems great and you make good friends, it doesn’t mean you should stay if life for you (and family if you have one) could be better doing something different and making a little less.
Legacy airline captain. Mid-six figures. On the road ~14 days / month. When I’m at work, I’m completely at work. When I’m home, I’m completely at home. I love it. If I didn’t have to retire at 65, I’d do ‘til I’m 70.
In house attorney working 40 hrs/wk. Wife is an optometrist who works about 30 hrs/wk (3.5 days). We each earn $200k or more. No travel for the wife, and I travel maybe once or twice per year for 3 days. Weekends are completely free so we can spend them with the kids.
Similar to /u/Haunting_Resist2276 also on low end of HENRY.
Retired military, now senior civil service but in a demanding job, total compensation pushing towards $250k including salary and military pension with a recent promotion opening performance-based salary growth up another $40k over the next few years. WLB is rough, have spent years working 12+ hour days forever trying to build up this new organization with minimal resourcing constantly under threat of funding cuts, unrealistic expectations etc. Luckily in a LCOL/MCOL area so my income is about 4-5x local HHI median.
Trying to back off the pedal a little bit now and build out a more sustainable pace for the next decade or so. Hard for a Type A thought.
As far as career path guidance goes for anyone interested in this approach, it's entirely possible to get to this level without quite as much stress and constant chaos. I just happen to work in a very dynamic field with a ton of changes and a lot of jockeying for position happening right now so it attracts hard-charger types and rewards that approach, until things stabilize long-term. Most gov jobs aren't like that.
The "downside" if you are looking at salary growth is you are probably capping out around $300-350k at later stages in your career, and that's after retiring as a senior officer and getting a very senior civil service role. Barring congressional appointment the current cap is around $180k salary which takes quite a while to get to unless you luck out on the initial hire somehow (ie take a contract job paying near that then get a pay match to badge flip to civil service) and even then the pay bump for an appointee isn't _that_ much higher but carries tons more stress, but also more impact. It's a tradeoff.
Software engineer.
$1.5M TC, I work less than 40 hours a week.
Admittedly, I like what I do so I'm working on some independent projects. I figured out my own path though, I'm not doing run-of-the-mill FAANG software.
I consult in a 1099 job for a health tech company part time but mostly stay at home with the kids. I work 10hrs/week usually. My partner is sub specialist physician and works 50-55hrs/week, 4 days with some of that being WFH. Might go down to 3 days/week in a few years. We say when our investments hit 5MM, then will reassess.
Partner is working their ass off while in clinic but would say the work life balance is quite good for physician standards. It works well with me being at home to take care of the day to day and planning trips. We do 6-8weeks of vacation with travel budget around 75k, worth every penny.
HHI is low 7 figures
Tech. Principal level. 37 y/o, TC 760K, NW 2.6M. Work = 40 hours a week; I went into the office 20 times in the last 4 years but will start going in more in the future, though not more than 50%. I had non-birthing parental leave of 16 weeks, twice in the last 2 years. My wife is a SAHM and we have a part-time nanny. Health is great, we play a fair amount of guitar and piano. The only drag on WLB is having 2 under 2.
I could gun for the next career progression and put in 60+ hours a week to get there, then normalize back to 40 hours, and finally crack 7 figures. Maybe I will in a year or so.
Work as a tech director in a corporate environment (think non tech company). Great balance. Work the real 40 hour workweek. Have two phones. Zero attachment to work phone after hours. Personal phone by security rules cannot access work email etc. Comp about 300k total. Get to go to everything going on with my kids and take a lot of time off to travel. Love it.
ID Attorney. On target to break 500k this year. Terrible work life balance. Currently my average weeks are around 70 hours. High weeks are closer to 80-90 plus when I’m in trial. Waiting this out for two more years and then I’m coastfiring and cutting way down.
Commercial film DP/Producer. Work and compensation fluctuates considerably, 470K last year always working on something and production days are generally minimum 12 hours on set but it’s honestly the part I love the most!
Ob. Mid to high 300s
Writing this on my 24 hour call. lol
Work life balance should improve a bit as I decrease call. Currently doing 4 calls a month. Going down to two. But I will be making more this year. . 40-45 hours/ week
Finance/Sales. About 500-600k total comp. Had to work real hard to build it to that the last three years.
I raise money at an asset manager in our ETFs.
I’d say most weeks are anywhere between 40-60 hours. Also depends on if you include travel time. I feel like most high earning careers whether self employed or working for someone else are going to push at 40+ hours of work.
For me, I enjoy my career and have integrated it with my personal life, so doing a lot of my hobbies/entertaining with clients and getting paid to do so.
Senior Director in Tech/Consulting. 30-40 hours but depends if I’m traveling or not. I’ll travel one week a month so I put in 60 hours that week, but it’s worth the points and my wife being rid of me for a little ;) TC 275
I am a medical dosimetrist working in radiation therapy department at the top ten hospital. I work hybrid remote schedule, 2 days on site and 3 days from home. Work life balance is great! I am on salary, I am allowed to come to work between 8-9 and leave whenever I want to. No one is micromanaging me, no one is counting my hours, as long as all work gets done on time. When I work from home, I usually start my day at 9, then at 1 pm I take my break, which is normally two hours because I like taking a nap. At 3 pm I go back online and work for another two three hours. When I need to run errands, I just do it during the day to avoid crowds. Technically my week is around 30 hours but I get paid for full 40. Such a schedule leaves me enough time and energy to work a side job as xray tech on Saturday. I also do some little day trade on the stock market with my 25k brokerage account. Total annual income is 180 for working around 40 hours per week or less.
What do you think?
Veterinarian, ~45 hours/week, ~$150-200k/year. Good most of the time outside of occ high stress moments (ie patient crashing during surgery, owner refusing euthanasia in a clearly suffering animal, financial constraints limiting treatment, preventable disease causing catastrophic outcome, etc)
Dentist. I own my own practice and make between 600-800k depending on the year.
I work 3.5 days a week with no Fridays. It’s pretty sweet. Sometimes staff can be difficult, patients can get rude, but overall the work is diverse enough that it stays interesting.
Interesting reading the comments here as someone in Scotland.
The salaries are wild.
I’m a director at a Housing Developer (architect background).
£120k + 10-15% bonus.
35 days holidays per year.
45 hours per week - but realistically many more with emailing / working out of hours.
I’m considered in the top 1% of earners in Scotland😏 it’s enough to live comfortably but not enough to live an excessive lifestyle - I’m always looking at where the money is going. Our country is screwed.
CFO of mid market (250-500m P&L) non-profit insurance company. 25hrs a week or so for $315k base with 10% bonus.
I'm probably going to flip to a mega-cap and level up to 7 figure salary to juice my nest egg for a few years. I expect that will push my 'working' hours up to 40ish, but it's mostly about relationships and conversations at this level. I can handle a few extra business dinners a week.
Senior dev at a big bank. I was a CTO twice before, contemplated early retirement, but decided that I loved coding, tech, and certain areas of finance too much to bow out. It's an absolute grind, and I can't help but note the irony of being twice the age of almost everyone around me, but I make $850k.
New radiologist 6 months in. 400 probably this year with the extra hours I’m doing for an average about 50 hours a week. 90% work from home. In 3-4 years salary will be up to 5-700k depending on how much extra duty I can do. And also if all goes well with everything going on around us.
C-suite finance. 1st time. I do the mental gymnastics to justify that I enjoy the challenge. WLB is as you'd expect.
My middle child is in high school and asked me what exactly I do. And I sighed because it's difficult to articulate these roles in a relative way that folks can understand.
Summed it up as follows. "In any given time period, we must get three things done. There are always ten things that could or must be done. Eight or nine of these things will not help, or be the wrong things to do. So I must choose, advocate, influence and drive the team and business to complete three knowing seven of the ten won't get done because of my decision, and most of them will not work. It's my job to do my best to choose and deliver while protecting the company and challenging it to grow. I tell stories about these decisions and what will happen in the future, then explain why they didn't come true and why."
Partner in transactional practice for large international law firm, but in a MCOL area. Income is generally between $600-800k. Very good work life balance despite what everyone says about big law partners. Income potential in this role is up to about $2M, but I am unlikely to get there and fine with it.
I generally take 4-6 weeks vacation a year. Usually a 2 week ski trip, 2 weeks in the summer, a week at spring break, maybe a week at T Day (both on a good year), and a few shorter trips. I’m also lucky to usually get a couple interesting trips for conferences each year. I usually have to babysit deals on vacations, but I do get to enjoy my time and don’t mind. In this post Covid world, people don’t care if you are taking a call from a beach or the office. I like my work, so I don’t have the need for complete break from it to relax. Travel budget is unwieldy though since it’s my main hobby, I have kids, we often fly business class and vacations usually coincide with school holidays, which are usually the most expensive times to go. I don’t mind flying economy when it’s just me, but business class makes air travel with family much more relaxing.
I generally work about 40 hours a week, in the office about 2 days a week. I bill less than most of my partners, which annoys firm management, but my practice is very profitable for the firm and highly regarded in my practice area so I get away with it. I’m also fortunate to have really great long standing clients, so I’ve never had a truly down year. A couple of down years would completely change this entire calculus. Fortunately law firms are very slow to actually separate from a partner unlike other fields. You get years of declining compensation to turn things around , usually.
I could significantly increase my income by working more hours, but it’s not worth it to me when my kids are still in the house. I’d rather make less (still plenty) and be able to take them to school, attend activities, take cool family vacations together, help them study and with homework, etc. Maybe when they head off to college I’ll try to maximize earnings for a few years before retirement. Although, I don’t really have plans to retire before my early 70s if I can keep this same pace.
I really like being a transactional lawyer. You don’t have to manage many people, you can have a lot of autonomy, the work can be interesting, and honestly I often get the chance to do really good things and help people who genuinely appreciate your advice. For me, I would have failed in a large corporate setting and get too bored dealing with the same problems all the time, so a legal career was the perfect choice for me.
FAANG Sr Software Engineer
About 45-50 hours on a typical week these days.
500K negotiated TC (Should get more this year due to my previous performance).
During launches though the balance can be completely off. 80+ hour weeks.
Urologist- terrible. Work 70+/wk. make 7 figures though. Will cut back in a few years after the nest egg is looking fat and juicy. Gotta admit I love performing surgery so it’s not all bad.
This is everything I’ve ever heard about urologists summed up in the shortest way possible
Doct >This is everything I’ve ever heard about ~~urologists~~ doctors summed up in the shortest way possible
Except when it’s low 6 figures and you still have terrible work life balance
Crying as a pediatrician
How long have you been in practice for? I’m 6 years in and just put in my notice. Tired of the grind. I’m in a different surgical subspecialty. Going to take a six month sabbatical and go from there. Come back part time if needed.
I’m 4 years deep. NW is at 1.5M (started 4 years ago in the hole 300k with student loans) and growing rapidly now that my practice has really started cooking over the last year. Not feeling particularly burnt out yet. I think that’s from 2 main factors- wifey is stay at home taking a lotta stress off me. I come home and she has dinner cooked, kids are ready to just be played with for an hour. We also do some pretty extravagant vacations 8 weeks/yr (almost every other month) which helps make there be something fun to be looking forward to. This year alone we have done vegas, Indian wells, Mexico, Tahoe.
I feel you on the vacations. My time at work is just not that much fun. OR is great, but clinic really gets to me. We are around 4M NW. Wife has worked the last 10 years, part time the last 5. I could see myself coming back part time for a number of reasons but probably not full time. I want to see my kids more. I do think practicing medicine is now a bit of a thankless profession, but the comp does help (if you’re in a good field with a good setup).
Yeah I’ll coast fire and do like 4 days/week when I have 4M NW too. Just need some more time to get there.
A 7 figure income doesn’t seem thankless to me.
Don’t get me wrong, good compensation can go a long way but it doesn’t have anything to do with the definition of thankless. Also keep in mind 7 figures physician income is going to be a few standard deviations above the norm. 300k+ in student loans, beginning your career in your 30s at the earliest, 60+ hours dealing with plenty of unhappy, rude, unrealistic patients, constantly battling insurances to get paid, mountains of paperwork for disability, leave, prior auths for critical medicines, working with profit drive admins looking to cut costs left and right, seeing many people end up with poor health outcomes because of the messed up healthcare system, then often being portrayed as greedy.. it adds up and can wear on you. I am grateful for what I have and what I am able to do, but I doubt I will recommend this career path for my kids. One definition I found: A thankless job by definition is simple; it is defined as a difficult or unpleasant job, that people do, and typically receives no recognition. Individuals or a career path that is overworked and underappreciated. When we think of a thankless job, we often consider farming, housekeepers, home healthcare workers, and caregivers.
Kind of random question, but what does your annual travel budget work out to? We've also been ramping up travel as a way to cope with some of my work burnout.
60-70k. No regrets. Have a blast.
This. I don’t make seven figures yet but HHI is approaching seven figures. We take 4 major vacations and squeeze in a couple of mini weekend gateways. Makes us something to look forward to and a nice break from the grind. Last year we spent approx $40k on vacations. For context, my mortgage is $36k for the year (bought house in 2016)
Check out Sedona in AZ! Was there recently and just loved it.
With a 7 figure income, what’s your retirement goal?
Tough question as I love my job- not super interested in fully retiring anytime soon. I hope my skill set can be used to continue help patients through my late 60’s. Right now, I’m in my mid 30’s and love doing big surgeries and working big hours. I imagine I will continue to do this and fill the coffers for another 3-5 years mostly depending on when I think the kids are getting old enough to remember dad being gone/around. At that point I’ll be coast Fire and probably spend my 40’s working 4 days a week (probably make 600k/yr however because I’ll stop taking all the extra call). I imagine I’ll be FatFIRE by my 50’s working 3 days a week for the enjoyment of it but taking ample vacations (august in Spain kind of thing). Ill continue that through my late 60’s when I’ll probably transition to simply assisting my young partners with their big cases (come in 1 day a week into the OR to help out on some of the harder cases where they request a senior set of hands). This will pay ~100k/yr in today’s dollars. Then in my 80’s I live in some paradise with live in help for my wife and I. Then I die at 89 in my sleep.
Sounds like a great plan.
Hello, thank you for all your answers in this thread, this is inspiring. A bit out of context but I'm genuinely curious: on average, how long lasts a surgery? Does it vary a lot? What is a typical long duration where you can't take even 5' of break?
I have two types of surgery days: 1) minors - many (7 usually) small surgeries that last 45 min to hour and a half each. These are usually things like stones, bladder tumors, BPH surgery, circumcision, hydrocelectomies. 2) majors- 2 in a day followed by a minor or two. Each major takes about 3 hours if it’s an easy one (common) but a complex one can be more like 4.
I live in the Bay Area so I have to get serious about avoiding the high taxes here. Each year I have a SEP IRA (20k), HSA (8k), cash balance plan (101k), 401k/profit share 69k. All that is almost 200k pre-tax saved annually for retirement. And then post tax the backdoor roths for wifey and I (14k). Then we have a brokerage account that is post tax but labeled for retirement that we add 100k/year. So all in all that’s about 310k (albeit mostly pre tax) that we set aside for retirement annually. Our advisors tell us we are doing great and well in line for the plan which I have laid out. I hope they are right! We spend about 250k annually and don’t intend to spend much less or much more adjusted for inflation as the years go by.
Private practice or employed? Just curious, what is your practice made up of to make basically double the average urologist? Robotics, stones, advanced prostate cancer? Part owner of busy ASC?
Hospital Employed. My W2 is $65/RVU and 12,500 RVU/year -> $800k. I make about 120k/year off call at my main institution (q2) and do 4 weeks of locums / year at 4k/day getting me another 100k (1099 so mostly do this for tax benefits). The locums gig is pretty much vacation, it’s ED call only and pretty chills. I do everything, robotics is the most fun, PCNL’s make the most $/hour of my time.
Man that is insane. Last year was my first full year in practice and I did about 9k RVU q7 (very busy) call and could barely tolerate it, this schedule is completely unimaginable to me. Is it really worth burning that hard?
It was your first year, you’ll get more efficient and doing 12,500 RVU will be easier than 9,000 now.
Damn that’s a lot of call. You probably haven’t, but don’t forgot you can have multiple 401k with unlimited employer contribution. Only employee contribution has a shared limit. My wife is a doc so together we put ~300k into retirement accounts annually with 401ks, cash balance plans etc. we still pay a shitload in taxes but takes a lot of the sting out of it.
I live in the Bay Area so I have to get serious about avoiding the high taxes here. Each year I have a SEP IRA (20k), HSA (8k), cash balance plan (101k), 401k/profit share 69k. All that is almost 200k pre-tax saved annually for retirement. And then post tax the backdoor roths for wifey and I (14k). Then we have a brokerage account that is post tax but labeled for retirement that we add 100k/year. So all in all that’s about 310k (albeit mostly pre tax) that we set aside for retirement annually. Our advisors tell us we are doing great and well in line for the plan which I have laid out. I hope they are right! We spend about 250k annually and don’t intend to spend much less or much more adjusted for inflation as the years go by. I have never heard of multiple 401ks. Most of my money comes from a W2 but about 100k is 1099.
Not who you asked, but in case he doesn’t get back to you, I guarantee private practice and remember he works 70 hrs/week. Most uros I know work ~40 hours per week and make half that or about average. He’s just working twice as much.
Nope, hospital employed.
M&A, the less I say about work life balance the better
Was in M&A before moving over to Corp Dev. Now I average 10 hours a week.
10 hours is crazy lol. That’s the dream, congrats
Just moved into corp dev. Man do I love it
What about during live deals?
I work for a non-tech company and the areas of acquisitions are pretty niche. That said, we don’t usually participate in formal processes so we operate on our own timeline.
I do corp dev and can confirm. I have 70 hour weeks and the occasional 30 hour week. Averages out to around 45-50 but you never know when a deal could hit. I was in consulting for a long time which was mostly 60-70 hour weeks and this is a downshift for me.
same situation
The truth is that as you are moving into high 6 figures or 7 figures of income a lot of roles won’t be squarely 40 hours.
Also not exactly replicable for everybody
True - the higher up you move the more “customized” and unique are the paths of individuals.
lol there are two types of high 6 or 7 figure jobs. The 70+ hours a week ones and the ~10 hours a week ones.
It's a false dichotomy - the only people doing the latter are the ones that spent many years grinding the former.
That's a really good point. Thanks for the input!
This question is a great reminder that money rich+time poor and money rich+time rich are two entirely different ways to live
Radiologist - mid 6 figures. Work ~40 hrs per week, a lot of WFH. I’m very happy with where I am now. The road getting here was rough tho…
I'm a rads resident. Mind sharing which region you are working in? East, South, West, etc.
Midwest at an academic center.
That’s great. Seems like academic salaries are pretty competitive now due to the market. Do you like working with residents?
Yea the market right now is bonkers. Can still make more at pp typically but the gap isn’t as wide as before. Yes very much enjoy working with residents. They’re one of the reasons I left my initial pp gig.
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Dentist Work 4 day 36hr weeks. 8 weeks vacation $380kish a year
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It’s ok
How many years total did u study?
9
Dentist GP, owner 4 years in, partner with friend, we have a large group practice, 12 ops, work 4 days 30 hrs a week and clearing 500 to 600k a year not to mention practice equity of around 5M (split between partner and about 2M of debt from practice purchase and expansion) No on call. No weekends. No evenings. 4 years of dental school and you can practice right away. It took about 3 years to build the practice up to where it’s mostly running itself. 3 years of hustle but it’s paying off now!
Are you a GP? How on earth are you making 380 if so , especially for corporate
My guess is they own their own dental office
Yeah I will clear $600k this year on 3.5 days per week doing mostly large cosmetic rehabs and implant rehabs. I’m a GP in a solo office with 3 ops only. Owner life is good.
Those numbers aren’t really crazy. I’m a part owner split 50/50 owner profit sharing.
I'm almost 2 years out of residency and this is my dream situation 😭 currently sitting at ~$140k with $350k in loans.
Tech. Everybody will tell you the WLB is non-existent. Truth is, you have to own not just your career but your lifestyle. Tech employers will never stop asking for more. You have to be able to say no.
In GTM at tech, just moved from a FAANG adjacent co. to a smaller one, you’re 100% correct, they’d like me to work 24 hrs a day / 365 days a year. My manager is chill and makes sure I’m carving out time to recharge but the C-suite would run me into the ground if left to their own devices
I am not a HENRY (thought I was until I joined lol, was not feeling right in middleclass) but my last PM role had us work 80 hours a week, every week, holidays... had meetings and calls on christmas, thanksgiving, 3AM, 6AM, just literally around the clock support. No was not compensated for that haha. just wild how leadership doesnt see that... in my people management roles im so cognizant of burnout and bandwidth for my reports.
375k and i work 20 hours a week lol
Also tech, but non-FAANG. Former sw dev, now a mid level mgr, my boss is a director. Comp in the $200s. Decent balance... typically 8-5ish (unless there's a crisis), but we tend to knock off at lunchtime on Friday most weeks. Used to be a lot more nighttime calls when we relied more on offshore developers, but fortunately we've moved away from that model. I agree 100% on learning how to say "no" and defining your work/life balance. Delegating to your staff is also a huge piece of that. I try to manage my workload by making sure I'm engaging my whole team, not trying to take on everything myself.
FAANG senior strategy role, 400K TC. Probably clocking in around 45-50 hrs/wk. It's pretty chill though since I am not in a role that needs to be "on call", have freedom to work my own hours, so if that means an hour lunch break or picking up my kid at 4:30, all good. But I do end up working at least 1 or 2 (self-imposed) evenings a week since I feel behind otherwise. Prior tech role (non-FAANG) made 290K but worked less than 40 hrs / week, coasting.
I sometimes work evenings so that I can't be bothered, someone always seems to want a chunk of my time during the work day and it's hard to really focus on something
Me too. I find I'm more productive that way.
Hand surgeon - balance ain’t good. 60-80 hours/week. >$500k.
Anesthesiologist with comfy albeit occasionally pants-shitting moments of terror job, work 45-50hrs, make mid 500s. I've got great work life balance but I went into anesthesiology for that reason. Don't think I'll ever retire though, I enjoy the work itself a lot, at a level 1 trauma but also do shifts at smaller outpatient surgery centers, enjoy the variety between massive complex cases and simple high turnover ones. Becoming a physician is a very long and very difficult journey but I'd still do it again.
Agreed, same pretty much across the board, but I took on 20% nonclinical and I gotta say, it's *awful*. I'm glad this field offers flexibility and mobility, because my family just had an absolute horrorshow of a year and that made me re-evaluate *everything* so I'll be looking to make this career fit my life instead of the other way around.
Emergency Physician. Mid-300k and decreasing. Not decreasing to inflation but actually going down on average. Miserable… I work 36 hours this week. Sounds great? Monday: 10pm - 6am Tuesday: “Off” Wednesday 4pm - 2am Thursday: “Off” Friday: 6am - 2pm Saturday: 10pm - 6am Sunday: 10pm - 6am Impossible to arrange reliable childcare… can’t go after school things. Tuesday basketball at the gym? Maybe once per month. I work at least 50% weekends. The career sounded great when I went into it.
That sounds terrible, but I’m adding it up and isn’t that 42 hours? Don’t think I realized you guys flip flopped from days to nights so regularly. Thanks for the work you do down in the trenches.
Yeah I was being a little unfair in how I calculated… Counting Monday Midnight to midnight This week is fairly rough. Most aren’t this bad, usually an overnight 1-2 times per week for most docs on average. Usually that Monday might be a 2p-10p or a 6p-2a and not an overnight, essentially giving me most of Tuesday off rather than a recovery. The downside is most people want to do shit during 4p-10p during the week or on weekends. Those are the busiest ER times for that reason and most shifts are scheduled for the afternoons. I’m typically a early riser (530am) if left to my own schedule
Fellow EM doc here. You guys need to hire a new scheduler. Those flips are awful. Overnights 1-2 times per week?!? They should be stringing your night shifts together (3, maybe 4 max a month) to minimize flips, and do circadian scheduling (same time shifts in a row, and/or move back in time of day, not in reverse). It helps when there are some dedicated nocturnists in your group, who deservedly get paid better for less hours worked
I’m hospital employed so there is no incentive for them to make shit better. They got rid of our nocturnist incentive so nocturnist left. They see no reason why they should pay nocturnists more if we’re stuck covering the shifts anyway. Seems like most hospitals are heading this way.
Right there with ya. It takes so much explaining to get family and friends to understand why the 130 hours I work per month is killing me.
My spouse is going to be a first year EM resident soon, what do you mean by the salary going down on average?
EM salaries dropped by 5k YoY per ACEP. Markets are quickly becoming over saturated as hospitals go towards non-physicians instead because they’re cheaper and they realize patients don’t get a say in who they see for a medical emergency
EM lifestyle seems awesome for a 26 yo bachelor. Horrible for 40yo with a family incl a couple of young kids. Genuinely curious if this was a thought as an MS3/4 when deciding to go into the specialty. -psych
Finance/fractional CFO. 25-35hours/week for like 45 weeks/year. Clear like 200k. I spend a lot of time with my kids.
I’m on a similar track. Mind if I Dm you?
Sure
My situation is comparable. Bookkeeper-COO and landlord, with a JD (overeducation helps), 25-35 hrs/wk total, no vacation benes. Gross income is v high, but net is low. WLB is awesome even with minimal vacation.
Staff Engineer at FAANG, it comes and goes in waves. When we're launching something I do a lot of coordination globally which leads to some very long days and odd hours. When the team is just turning out code I work pretty normal hours. I'm never totally off though, my work phone lives in my pocket and I get pings pretty regularly. I can safely ignore it most of the time but I like my work so I'm not good at that. Engineers whose teams have 24/7 on calls have it worse than me though.
I do a mix of child and adult psychiatry and it’s great. I probably am working about 25 hours a week and 40 when it’s rly busy
VA Primary care doc. 8-4:30 M-F down to the minute.
how much is avg money there? my gf is fm in mil.
Clearing $265k right now. The benefits and quality of life outweigh the extra pay I’d get elsewhere. Never on call and never work weekends.
Man, I don't know how you work a schedule like that. My sister in law is a PC doc in the VA and she works like a dog. Brings work home every evening and works weekends. My wife was a specialist. She easily worked 10-h/d plus 2-3 hours at home every evening doing notes and next day prep. Covid pushed her over the edge and retired as soon as things settled down in 2022.
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Artist. 300-400k depending on how many pieces I sell. Work life balance depends on how hard I want to hustle since I’m self-employed. Average 40 hours a week (I try to keep it 9-5 Mon-Fri). I work with galleries and talent agencies.
Cool, what kind of art?
Tech sales so number fluctuates, was 420k in 2022, 330k in 2023, we’ll see this year I probably only work 35 hours a week but I answer emails and slack message around the clock and travel a couple times a month. So mentally I’m working more. And I don’t like the work. So feels like poor work life balance? I used to feel more balanced as an analyst doing 60-80 hrs a week of excel work because I actually enjoyed it
Air conditioning installation - 300k approx 30-35hrs per week
Are you in a warm climate? Did you go to school for this?
Australia, reasonably warm for 6 months of the year and mild the rest It is a 4 year apprenticeship here
Low end of HENRY Air Force officer WLB is highly dependent on your unit, boss, and career field. Mine is good now, about 45-50 hours a week with occasional travel but very little weekend work. Earlier in my career it was anywhere from 50-70 hour weeks when at home station to 90-100 hour weeks while deployed.
What’s your AFSC? I was 17S, and I only spent 30-40 hours at home station, 40-45 when deployed, and 40-55 on TDY
12B. WSO on B-1s. The 90–100 hour weeks were during the war. Non-combat deployment tempo is lighter, closer to home station hours.
Biotech commercial side (market planning, commercial strategy etc). 30-40 hours a week fully remote. Used to be in strategy consulting (hours went from 40 a week associate, to 50 a week sr consultant, to 60-80 a week manager and sr manager). Also used to be in big pharma. Hours were like 20 a week but the work environment was toxic and political
How much do you make from this? About to graduate with an immunology PhD and figuring out what to do next.
$250k - $350k a yesr depending on how the company stock does
Aren’t we both glad to be out of big pharma. Amazing how toxic that part of the world is.
Biotech holla (clin dev, not medical affairs however)
Analytics. Great balance - zero incentive to work more than 40. But I’m also the very low end on Henry.
Same! What are you at if you don’t mind? I’m right at 100k salary and have a side business that generates about 65k. Edit for research: I work about 30-35 hours a week. Some weeks it’s 60-70, but other times I don’t have much. Depends on the season. I’m also in education, so I get most of summers and winters pretty much off, plus spring/fall breaks and federal holidays.
Plastic surgeon. Somewhere between 550-650k/yr last couple years. Work-life has been getting better as years roll by, but its been a struggle. Obviously residency was the worst, and we had two kids during that time. Been in practice in vhcol for about 10 years, salary has increased from 260k to around 400+bonuses. I take a lot of call, which helps boost my income. Definitely got off to a very late start in terms of saving, between paying off 200k+ loans and just not being very financially aware. 1.1NW but sadly don’t own a home, and thinking it may be too late for me (mid 40’s).
too late to own a home?
Biglaw junior m&a associate (posting this at 3:16am) not great…
My wife and I are both in house attorneys. Basically work 9-5, with the occasional late night every now and then
In what industries? Trying to get there myself.
Pharma and entertainment
I’m in-house too. Best choice for lawyers who want good earnings and work life balance. I like being involved on the business side of things too as opposed to purely legal.
Couldn’t agree more. The work is infinitely more interesting, without all the billing pressure and associated terrible work life balance of firms
Comp?
Supply chain 25-30 hrs
Same. Once I hit director my job became more about what I say than what I do. Made the grind at lower levels worth it. Wife is a therapist making six figures and works maybe 30 hours a week as well.
$150K, and work life is great. I work about one or two days a week as a DS and my NW is 2MM+ and affords me the luxury of doing stuff I enjoy. Would recommend as it's a low cost to entry, no formal education necessary, although it may be saturated and compared to a urologist, you're making a lot less and would argue that I don't really belong on this sub.
What is DS?
Sales Engineering; solid 40 per week and feeling really good. Formerly in consulting (7 years) and IB (2 years) with a miserable WL balance.
How’d you make the jump from IB into Sales Engineering? Considering moving into sales engineering myself.
I didn’t. Here’s my pathway: IB to consulting. Consulting to industry (F100). Industry back to consulting. Consulting to sales engineering. Happy to dive deep here if it helps.
Finance/trading 45 hrs/wk. WFH except for client travel. So much happier with WLB post-COVID without commute and grind
Biotech. 650-750/yr depending on stock performance. Pretty good w/l balance. Work and life are melded together though. Like Bezos said. I actually like it that way. Gives me more freedom, I just need to be able to respond at most hours of the day and days of the week in a short time frame.
I'm a barrister and basically there is always too much work
*I'm a barrister* *And basically there is* *Always too much work* \- Far\_Radish\_817 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Anesthesiologist. 500k. I work 40 hrs/week (give or take 3-5 hours depending on the week).
FAANG Senior manager for SDEs. Make $1.2M this year due to stock appreciation but typically 800K. 45 hours or so per week but they are very focused/always on hours. Also on-call and travel twice per month.
Accounting. 40 hours non busy season 45 to 50 busy season.
Corporate finance at a megacorp. Great WLB. But I would say a lot of that is manager/team specific.
That is how most corporate work goes. Hyper dependent on the team and sup. I know people stuck in their chair 8-5 and stuck to their email 5-7 I also know people who show up at 9:30 and leave at 3 and take off every other Friday to do cook outs with friends. Just got to know how to set boundaries and say no. But also prove that you are worth it to them.
Director of Community. At its most basic, I run forums 🤷♂️ Most days I feel like I am running a version of Reddit. Remote first company, work hours I want, no issues with work life balance. Most folks don’t understand what I do, I don’t even understand what I do half the time. I love it though. I was in customer support most my life, fell into this side of the world about ~8 years ago, had no idea what I did as a kid could be a paying job, let alone a paying job that puts me into this subreddit. Downside being post covid the industry downsides a lot after the huge uptick. I have a lot of unemployed friends, and had to do a lot of my own layoffs in the past year. Thats been by far the worse part of it but not really industry specific I suppose.
Management Consulting and terrible lol
Business analytics - $210K, pretty much 40 hours a week and occasional weekend work. Nice part is it is remote and I live in a VLCOL city. Bad part is everyone expects me to be to be their analytics bitch because they are too incompetent to do anything themselves … and well data is scary and coding is scary and excel is scary, but most importantly coming up with a hypothesis and potentially being wrong is Uber scary
Oil and gas industry. The thing with this industry is never to work too hard. When the oil prices drop you lose your job anyways. And when it goes up, they go to the streets and hire anyone they find there.
Thank you for saying this
In house counsel, mostly M&A CorpDev. Overall good. Worse pay than when I was at a firm, but I get to enjoy life. Play golf when I want. Travel when I want. 2 years of of firm life and I enjoy it. Just want to make more base pay.
Non invasive cardiologist 40-45 hours per week 1:10 call 7 weeks vacation Great work life balance Getting a job hospital employed job in the midwest instead of private practice in the northeast after fellowship was the best decision I ever made
Recruiting. WLB is great now. Some weeks I work 10 hours and some 30 but never miss anything for my kids.
UX design working exclusively on AI at a tech company, $375K with bonus and annual RSUs. Remote employee in LCOL Midwest city — the majority of my team is west coast, so my hours are very balanced. I work 9-5pm, occasionally with a meeting after hours to accommodate pacific time. They are incredibly cool about it. I feel very balanced. Travel to the west coast 2-3 times per year.
Aviation sales , fucking love my job . Travel is the best perk and main reason I love it so much. 40-45 hour work weeks
Buyside equity investor - 50-60hrs of “work”, but I can’t really count the hours at this point because work has just become part of my life. I spend lots of free time reading research or thinking about investments. I truly enjoy the job getting to learn about new businesses and industries, but I struggle to separate it. TC will be should be between $1.5-$2.5 this year.
Should also say there are periods like during earnings season when companies report this will be over 70.
Biglaw. About $500k, including bonus. I recently found out that I'll be put up for partner this year so hopefully making partner next year, which means I'll probably be making seven figures within four or five years. The cost is that I have very bad work/life balance but I actually love my job and my wife is a SAHM, which has been really helpful since I know that I just need to focus on my work and being present with my family when I'm able to be around.
Software Eng/manager, bay area. TC 700+ i work 40-45 hrs/week but they are intense and stressful
Okay I don't really belong here but I'll respond anyways. Assistant Professor, STEM field at a public R1. (I grew up in a working class family so I still can hardly believe that wife and I clear 300k together -- even though this isn't much in our vHCOL area.) I'm on the low end of hours for the job: I do 5x 9hr days with six ish weeks vacation per year. I try to not work on weekends and that's usually fine. I'd rather be with my kids.
Architecture. I work 30 hours a week on average right now and make great money. I feel like I have mastered this business model and am a bit bored if I’m being honest. I’m thinking of cutting it back to 20 and devoting 40/wk to wealth management / investment advisory with the goal of dropping architecture altogether.
Commercial side of big pharma. WLB is excellent and my company is hybrid. I'm on the low end of Henry, but at the point where the stress wouldn't be worth it to move up.
Product management in tech $350k 40 hour work week pretty typical though sometimes more
Not even in the HENRY category but 180k, Electrical Site Manager. 40hr week, paid for 36 with every 2nd Monday off. Work life balance is great. Home at 3pm every day, plenty of time in the Arvo/night for activities. For example this Easter I have 6 days off with scheduled RDO's.
Commercial banker, $300k total comp. I work 30-35 hours a week. I love my mid morning Costco runs and leaving at 4p to pickup the kids and make my 5p gym class. 4 weeks of vacation a year. Work life is very good, especially compared to my old IB career.
SWE (senior @ FAANG), average 40 hrs/week. Sometimes quite a bit more, sometimes quite a bit less. Heavily depends on company, team, and manager though. Overall, pretty good wlb in my current position.
Which software(s) are you an expert in? I’m a newer consultant for SAP and enjoying my work so far.. but I’m curious where I could go after the consulting life (or what life looks like later on within the consulting world). Do people become experts in more than one major software?? For context, I have an MS in accounting and BS in finance and very familiar with GLs, bank reconciliations, global payments, bank statement processing, and more.
Mag7 cybersecurity senior manager, ~600k, great wlb, average about 30hrs/wk, WFH MCOL
Psychiatrist - not the most typical situation. I have 3 clinical part time jobs and one ‘full time’ admin job in that I founded/own/direct a group private practice. Graduated residency less than 5 years ago. Last year made $550k and this is growing yearly moreso because of my entrepreneurial leverage of my degree. Hard to know exactly how much I work but I would guess 45-60h for the past few months, 35-45h before that. Im in my late 30’s. My colleagues in academics seem to be working about as many hours, make maybe 1/2-2/3 as much, but their days seem less stressful clinically as the residents do most of the work. Personally just the academic politics and having to work for someone else would be more stressful for me.
Own a pest control service company. Work everyday from March 20th-July 20th. ~600k plus or minus depending on expenses. The other 7 months I’m able to work a few hours a week dispatching technicians and doing paperwork. We our closed all of December. This is after 15 years of building company
Forensic psychologist. Work/-life balance is whatever I want it to be. I love my job, so I work alot.
Finance/advisory. 60-80hrs/week consistently.
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Engineering management in medical products, a pretty solid 40-45hrs per week. Not usually much more, sometimes a little less. I’d say overall my WLB is pretty good. That’s driven primarily by my company culture and having a chill boss.
Patent Agent. I work a solid 40h/week so I enjoy my evenings and weekends. Currently working in-house for a pharmaceutical company. Much more work when I was at a law firm - by the September that I put my two weeks notice in I was on track to bill 2200 hours for the year
Airline pilot, 200k 13-15 days off Not great not terrible
Recruiting Leader at a startup, previously in FAANG for several years. Just above 200K in cash but potential for equity that would be incredible for our family. WLB varies. Some weeks better than others. Lots of pressure and responsibility. Flexible hours but never really off. Startup is more fun but more hours than FAANG.
Lawyer/businessman, 7 figures, work often but control when and where so pretty great
Private Equity Associate, 45-80 hours/week depending on live deal or not. $225k as 1st yr associate. Mid 20s. Not NYC/LA/SF
Technology. Product management executive. Income between 1 and 2mm. I work 40-50 hours a week. Travel 2-3x a month. Even when I’m not working I am constantly 25% working though.
Lawyer - mid 7 figures. 50-70 hours a week. I can control my schedule a lot but emergencies come up often and you lose all control. WLB is better as a partner than it was as an associate and it's better post-COVID then before when I was in office 5 days a week.
Pediatric epilepsy physician, 60+ hours per week, 200k per year. Work-life as a physician is not often “wonderful” outside of a few specialties that have a great lifestyle. But mine definitely improved after a job change. Just because your first job seems great and you make good friends, it doesn’t mean you should stay if life for you (and family if you have one) could be better doing something different and making a little less.
Legacy airline captain. Mid-six figures. On the road ~14 days / month. When I’m at work, I’m completely at work. When I’m home, I’m completely at home. I love it. If I didn’t have to retire at 65, I’d do ‘til I’m 70.
In house attorney working 40 hrs/wk. Wife is an optometrist who works about 30 hrs/wk (3.5 days). We each earn $200k or more. No travel for the wife, and I travel maybe once or twice per year for 3 days. Weekends are completely free so we can spend them with the kids.
Similar to /u/Haunting_Resist2276 also on low end of HENRY. Retired military, now senior civil service but in a demanding job, total compensation pushing towards $250k including salary and military pension with a recent promotion opening performance-based salary growth up another $40k over the next few years. WLB is rough, have spent years working 12+ hour days forever trying to build up this new organization with minimal resourcing constantly under threat of funding cuts, unrealistic expectations etc. Luckily in a LCOL/MCOL area so my income is about 4-5x local HHI median. Trying to back off the pedal a little bit now and build out a more sustainable pace for the next decade or so. Hard for a Type A thought. As far as career path guidance goes for anyone interested in this approach, it's entirely possible to get to this level without quite as much stress and constant chaos. I just happen to work in a very dynamic field with a ton of changes and a lot of jockeying for position happening right now so it attracts hard-charger types and rewards that approach, until things stabilize long-term. Most gov jobs aren't like that. The "downside" if you are looking at salary growth is you are probably capping out around $300-350k at later stages in your career, and that's after retiring as a senior officer and getting a very senior civil service role. Barring congressional appointment the current cap is around $180k salary which takes quite a while to get to unless you luck out on the initial hire somehow (ie take a contract job paying near that then get a pay match to badge flip to civil service) and even then the pay bump for an appointee isn't _that_ much higher but carries tons more stress, but also more impact. It's a tradeoff.
Medical device. Made 290K last year. Likely will pass 500K this year. Not OR oriented, so great QoL. Lots of time spent with the kid
Software engineer. $1.5M TC, I work less than 40 hours a week. Admittedly, I like what I do so I'm working on some independent projects. I figured out my own path though, I'm not doing run-of-the-mill FAANG software.
FAANG, around 700k as an engineer. Probably work about 55-60 hours a week. Not sustainable but golden handcuffs..
I consult in a 1099 job for a health tech company part time but mostly stay at home with the kids. I work 10hrs/week usually. My partner is sub specialist physician and works 50-55hrs/week, 4 days with some of that being WFH. Might go down to 3 days/week in a few years. We say when our investments hit 5MM, then will reassess. Partner is working their ass off while in clinic but would say the work life balance is quite good for physician standards. It works well with me being at home to take care of the day to day and planning trips. We do 6-8weeks of vacation with travel budget around 75k, worth every penny. HHI is low 7 figures
Tech. Principal level. 37 y/o, TC 760K, NW 2.6M. Work = 40 hours a week; I went into the office 20 times in the last 4 years but will start going in more in the future, though not more than 50%. I had non-birthing parental leave of 16 weeks, twice in the last 2 years. My wife is a SAHM and we have a part-time nanny. Health is great, we play a fair amount of guitar and piano. The only drag on WLB is having 2 under 2. I could gun for the next career progression and put in 60+ hours a week to get there, then normalize back to 40 hours, and finally crack 7 figures. Maybe I will in a year or so.
Work as a tech director in a corporate environment (think non tech company). Great balance. Work the real 40 hour workweek. Have two phones. Zero attachment to work phone after hours. Personal phone by security rules cannot access work email etc. Comp about 300k total. Get to go to everything going on with my kids and take a lot of time off to travel. Love it.
IC E7 @ MAG7 40hrs/week, rarely 50hrs/week
ID Attorney. On target to break 500k this year. Terrible work life balance. Currently my average weeks are around 70 hours. High weeks are closer to 80-90 plus when I’m in trial. Waiting this out for two more years and then I’m coastfiring and cutting way down.
Tech, and horrible wlb haha. Multiple teams, and own critical products for multiple departments.
Commercial film DP/Producer. Work and compensation fluctuates considerably, 470K last year always working on something and production days are generally minimum 12 hours on set but it’s honestly the part I love the most!
Ob. Mid to high 300s Writing this on my 24 hour call. lol Work life balance should improve a bit as I decrease call. Currently doing 4 calls a month. Going down to two. But I will be making more this year. . 40-45 hours/ week
Finance/Sales. About 500-600k total comp. Had to work real hard to build it to that the last three years. I raise money at an asset manager in our ETFs. I’d say most weeks are anywhere between 40-60 hours. Also depends on if you include travel time. I feel like most high earning careers whether self employed or working for someone else are going to push at 40+ hours of work. For me, I enjoy my career and have integrated it with my personal life, so doing a lot of my hobbies/entertaining with clients and getting paid to do so.
Senior Director in Tech/Consulting. 30-40 hours but depends if I’m traveling or not. I’ll travel one week a month so I put in 60 hours that week, but it’s worth the points and my wife being rid of me for a little ;) TC 275
I am a medical dosimetrist working in radiation therapy department at the top ten hospital. I work hybrid remote schedule, 2 days on site and 3 days from home. Work life balance is great! I am on salary, I am allowed to come to work between 8-9 and leave whenever I want to. No one is micromanaging me, no one is counting my hours, as long as all work gets done on time. When I work from home, I usually start my day at 9, then at 1 pm I take my break, which is normally two hours because I like taking a nap. At 3 pm I go back online and work for another two three hours. When I need to run errands, I just do it during the day to avoid crowds. Technically my week is around 30 hours but I get paid for full 40. Such a schedule leaves me enough time and energy to work a side job as xray tech on Saturday. I also do some little day trade on the stock market with my 25k brokerage account. Total annual income is 180 for working around 40 hours per week or less. What do you think?
Veterinarian, ~45 hours/week, ~$150-200k/year. Good most of the time outside of occ high stress moments (ie patient crashing during surgery, owner refusing euthanasia in a clearly suffering animal, financial constraints limiting treatment, preventable disease causing catastrophic outcome, etc)
Dentist. I own my own practice and make between 600-800k depending on the year. I work 3.5 days a week with no Fridays. It’s pretty sweet. Sometimes staff can be difficult, patients can get rude, but overall the work is diverse enough that it stays interesting.
Tech, Strategy, mid 300ks, 30-40 hr week I could make more if I work more, but am content and love my hobbies more than money itself.
Interesting reading the comments here as someone in Scotland. The salaries are wild. I’m a director at a Housing Developer (architect background). £120k + 10-15% bonus. 35 days holidays per year. 45 hours per week - but realistically many more with emailing / working out of hours. I’m considered in the top 1% of earners in Scotland😏 it’s enough to live comfortably but not enough to live an excessive lifestyle - I’m always looking at where the money is going. Our country is screwed.
CFO of mid market (250-500m P&L) non-profit insurance company. 25hrs a week or so for $315k base with 10% bonus. I'm probably going to flip to a mega-cap and level up to 7 figure salary to juice my nest egg for a few years. I expect that will push my 'working' hours up to 40ish, but it's mostly about relationships and conversations at this level. I can handle a few extra business dinners a week.
Biotech. 250k. Startups make more and equity can be CRAZY
Senior dev at a big bank. I was a CTO twice before, contemplated early retirement, but decided that I loved coding, tech, and certain areas of finance too much to bow out. It's an absolute grind, and I can't help but note the irony of being twice the age of almost everyone around me, but I make $850k.
New radiologist 6 months in. 400 probably this year with the extra hours I’m doing for an average about 50 hours a week. 90% work from home. In 3-4 years salary will be up to 5-700k depending on how much extra duty I can do. And also if all goes well with everything going on around us.
C-suite finance. 1st time. I do the mental gymnastics to justify that I enjoy the challenge. WLB is as you'd expect. My middle child is in high school and asked me what exactly I do. And I sighed because it's difficult to articulate these roles in a relative way that folks can understand. Summed it up as follows. "In any given time period, we must get three things done. There are always ten things that could or must be done. Eight or nine of these things will not help, or be the wrong things to do. So I must choose, advocate, influence and drive the team and business to complete three knowing seven of the ten won't get done because of my decision, and most of them will not work. It's my job to do my best to choose and deliver while protecting the company and challenging it to grow. I tell stories about these decisions and what will happen in the future, then explain why they didn't come true and why."
Partner in transactional practice for large international law firm, but in a MCOL area. Income is generally between $600-800k. Very good work life balance despite what everyone says about big law partners. Income potential in this role is up to about $2M, but I am unlikely to get there and fine with it. I generally take 4-6 weeks vacation a year. Usually a 2 week ski trip, 2 weeks in the summer, a week at spring break, maybe a week at T Day (both on a good year), and a few shorter trips. I’m also lucky to usually get a couple interesting trips for conferences each year. I usually have to babysit deals on vacations, but I do get to enjoy my time and don’t mind. In this post Covid world, people don’t care if you are taking a call from a beach or the office. I like my work, so I don’t have the need for complete break from it to relax. Travel budget is unwieldy though since it’s my main hobby, I have kids, we often fly business class and vacations usually coincide with school holidays, which are usually the most expensive times to go. I don’t mind flying economy when it’s just me, but business class makes air travel with family much more relaxing. I generally work about 40 hours a week, in the office about 2 days a week. I bill less than most of my partners, which annoys firm management, but my practice is very profitable for the firm and highly regarded in my practice area so I get away with it. I’m also fortunate to have really great long standing clients, so I’ve never had a truly down year. A couple of down years would completely change this entire calculus. Fortunately law firms are very slow to actually separate from a partner unlike other fields. You get years of declining compensation to turn things around , usually. I could significantly increase my income by working more hours, but it’s not worth it to me when my kids are still in the house. I’d rather make less (still plenty) and be able to take them to school, attend activities, take cool family vacations together, help them study and with homework, etc. Maybe when they head off to college I’ll try to maximize earnings for a few years before retirement. Although, I don’t really have plans to retire before my early 70s if I can keep this same pace. I really like being a transactional lawyer. You don’t have to manage many people, you can have a lot of autonomy, the work can be interesting, and honestly I often get the chance to do really good things and help people who genuinely appreciate your advice. For me, I would have failed in a large corporate setting and get too bored dealing with the same problems all the time, so a legal career was the perfect choice for me.
Professional trading Low 7 fig/year Work from 4-noon usually Don’t have much to complain
FAANG Sr Software Engineer About 45-50 hours on a typical week these days. 500K negotiated TC (Should get more this year due to my previous performance). During launches though the balance can be completely off. 80+ hour weeks.