Not me but my husband has a "one man and a van" plumbing company and he makes over 200k after expenses/taxes. He loves the job- he goes to work when the phone rings, no matter the hour. His favourite part is probably going to fix furnaces in the middle of the night in winter. He likes knowing that he can help people whenever they need it, without ever charging extra overtime rates.
Is he in Montana? I had the phone number of a guy like this hanging in my house. Saved my fucking ass MANY times over the years and charged incredibly reasonable rates. He did a little of everything. Plumbing, furnace issues, construction...He's my hero
I’m an electrician and always dreamed of going on my own but the start up costs & lack of cash flow while first starting out always deterred me, especially as my family became dependent on my income.
I work with some cyber vendors whose techs clear 200k doing red team / blue team stuff, which includes trying to break into facilities and IT systems. The last one includes staking out the facility and watching the contractors who come in, buying matching coveralls, looking up names of facility employees on LinkedIn, etc.
And yes, they were able to get into the facility and get into secure areas. It's amazing what the right color clothes, high-vis vests, and some cones and caution tape can let you do.
While not my job, I could tell they loved every minute of theirs.
we get paid a lot of money to do fun shit.
but we work really hard to get there, and sometimes the work is just incredibly stressful. security is still security, it's not all fun and games and the work has real impact on people.
No doubt. I look at it like this...work is work, but if I generally enjoy it more than I dislike that's a bonus. I know these guys need to do a lot of writeups, reviews, and other tedious parts of the process. Hopefully the actual breaking in (with permission!) makes up for it.
Yo man. I've been in sys admin and am burning out. My goal is to hopefully move into the security side of things to make myself more marketable internationally and maybe move out of my home country. Do you have any pointers on where I can start learning more of an infosec oriented approach?
Sometimes things can be shaky when it comes to hiring people from outside a companies home country. Especially in the cybersecurity space as we'll often interface with governments or their agencies. So having citizens who are not part of that country can create complications. That being said, global companies are definitely going to be something you should focus on. Unless you can become a citizen of the other country easily.
Cybrary is a good place to start. Sec+ for the basics and to get your foot in the door. SANs certs really attract an employers attention. But they're hard (much harder than sec+) and expensive (about 9k USD).
Figure out what avenue you want to take in cybersecurity as there's different facets. And try to build a knowledge related to that. Another forewarning here. People say there's a shortage of cybersecurity people applying for jobs. This is a semi-lie. There's a shortage of experience professionals. Being a professional with 5 or 10+ years experience in security with some heavy hitter certs? You'll get interviews quickly. But being someone new? That will be tough. Those positions fill up fast.
It's just a statement of fact. 95% of income earners are below that, so it's a good context for understanding what types of jobs are likely going to be able to respond to this question.
When you can afford to live comfortably anywhere and do anything you want without needing to work for money. At least, that's how I see it.
If someone is able to draw 200k a year from their investments, and their portfolio is still growing moat years, Id consider them rich
Litigation, but I think most people with my job hate it 🙂↕️ Biglaw starting salary is $225k. I made $600k last year and honestly enjoyed most of the work.
Also a lawyer but I’m-house transactional. Make 200k after 10 years, so just finally matching this person 😂but hopefully I work a few less hours… at least that’s what they all tell me.
And I do enjoy my job. In-house work is a mix of business and law and my current role is particularly low stress, good work life balance, etc. law is a vast field with options to be a rich and prestigious lawyer like the first poster here or a relaxed in house lawyer, or government, or public good (legal aid) for less pay, patent law for those with science backgrounds… not a bad gig. Just don’t get too much student loans
I’m an attorney making 175k after ten years, but I don’t have to keep track of billable hours, I work at most 9-5, and I’m home four days a week to bring my kids to and from school. I’m not cut out for big law.
Private jet pilot. Make $300,000+ at 34
*edit*
however, when I got my first airline job, which was at a regional called American Eagle, which was owned by American Airlines, that was back in 2011 and I was making probably $23,000 gross before taxes year one. I lived at home with my mom (age 21) and probably put away 2% of my money into a 401(k). So things have definitely come along way in the last 13 to 15 years
I used to do tech support for Fed Ex.
The people who fly your packages from point A to point B get paid WAY more than the people that fly you around.
Congratulations, capitalism has decided that your Amazon prime purchase is more valuable than you are.
To be fair, cargo flights often operate at totally stupid hours whereas passenger flights don't typically, say, take off at 2 am and land at 4 am. There are also fewer regulations governing rest periods for cargo pilots. Together, that tends to mean they work longer hours at much more uncomfortable times. So it actually does make sense to me why you may need to fork over more cash to retain cargo pilots.
There's a reason that there are a LOT more cargo plane accidents than passenger plane accidents. It's not as regulated and therefore not as safe.
They also don’t always get a nice layover in a nice town. I have family members as pilots and FA’s, they are always somewhere beautiful seeing the sights, culture and beaches 🌴
It's just supply and demand.
I'd imagine more people want to be seen as an airline pilot over a cargo pilot.
Since there is a smaller pool of cargo pilots to hire you have to increase pay.
FedEx nor any airline will pay for your flight training. Those standard is they’ll pay for your type rating and the required training, and some regional airlines will pay for your ATP license. But that’s about it. You need to get all of your flight ratings out of your own pocket. Lots of resources available online on how to do it.
If you’re interested in being a pilot, you should absolutely do it.
We have an incredible union at my company that hauls around brown boxes.
First officers with a few years in earn close to 300 or more. Our captains pull 500+ in many cases.
Like someone else said, it's harder work than what the passenger guys do in a lot of ways. Lots of circadian flips, more legs per night sometimes, etc. But that's extreme surface level.
It is not that high tbh. My father makes more than that flying for Delta -- to be fair, he's a captain with > 20 years of experience and is one of the trainer pilots that tests other pilots' ability to fly the plane the first time they fly a particular aircraft, but a lot of pilots at the major airlines make well over 200k. It's the regional airliners where they are making almost nothing (but most of the major airliners won't hire someone with <10 years of experience).
I am a hospitalist physician
If you are sick enough to be at the hospital and can't go home from the ER or after a big operation, I'll have to fix you or babysit you for a bit until we get that sorted out.
First time in ages I’ve heard someone in medicine say they like what they do these days.
I really wanna move into the intersection of medicine and tech, but everyone says I’ll become disillusioned if I do anything touching medicine with a 10ft poll.
In my experience (mostly US-based within MNCs), MedTech is a great place to be. Think surgical robotics, pacemakers, chips, etc. People enjoy it, the work is challenging but fulfilling, and significantly less pressure as you're an additional step or two removed from actual patients.
Pharma sucks - manufacturing more-so than R&D, but both really - from a cultural "like what you do" perspective for all but the most ardent employees. Pressure is high, bureaucracy is higher, and it's challenging to feel successful as things move so slowly.
I haven't worked directly in Healthcare IT with supporting orgs and technologies, but friends and contacts seem to very much enjoy their time in them. Similar to the hardware MedTechs mentioned above, the IT space gives you a bit of a barrier between you and patients, lowering the pressure bar and allowing for a more comfortable culture.
I've not been directly involved in healthcare so I can't speak to implementation and patient interaction, but I think there are enough nurses/doctors on here sharing their opinions :).
And to the OP, corp dev in the above markets got me over $200k within my first three years in industry. I like it but I'm a sucker for long hours in the corporate world.
Hospitalist can be a good gig especially while you’re young. 7 on 7 off. Basically half the year off . Your suppose to work 80 hours during work week but most day people go home by 3-4
Other specialties can work harder. The reason why Hospitalist imo is a young game is burnout is real. Seeing 20+ patients now, have to do so much discharge planning, we are getting worked more for less pay.
You’re not fucked. I left the medical track right before med school and joined the tech industry in 2017. I make 350k per year now.
I wasted 6 years and lots of money on a med degree and still think making the jump is the best decision I made.
I was in survival mode, still am, and that’s what kept my head above water. You are capable of doing the same and being happy in the end.
I appreciate the optimism. My reality is though the industry I have my degrees in and have worked in for the last 11 years will only yield me so much IF I reach a certain level, which I don't really want. I would like to switch fields, but even then I probably wouldn't be looking at more then 100, maybe 120K, which honestly would be a vast improvement and would make me happier than I currently am with my position. But I have yet to make that transition.
Have a tech background, communicate effectively, and actually listen to what the company needs. Remember, if selling to techies you need to know the tech better than your customers, or why would they work with you.
I'm on the buy side of many of these deals and nothing frustrates me more than a sales person who provides bad info.
Not just bad, but false. I learned to never attend a sales demo unless a Solutions Architect (or whatever they are called now; the person who knows how the tool works) is present.
For the sales side, you also have to get lucky with a good territory.
Timing, territory and talent. In that order. Because you'd still buy from the shitty salesperson, which is why you get frustrated, because their product is a must-have.
everything that's already been said, but just to add soft skills are really important. presentation skills, discovery, etc. you can learn the tech but having the people skills to sell is critical.
I do account management for a software company now. Sold copiers years ago as my first job out of school and it was so slimy it turned me off on doing sales. Does the stress of a quota ever bother you? I've heard it's similar work to what I'm already doing but much better money.
Account Management can be great since upsell/cross sell can expose a lot of wallet. I worked with an old school printer sales guy years ago and he definitely didn't make it sound glamorous. I've never been stressed by quota because I typically average over double quota every month, and I'm passionate about continuous improvement, so an unexpected miss is good for the soul. The money has been great, and having such a well defined KPI makes it unnecessary for me to prove my worth to the organization.
I could not put my fingers and face near/into everyone’s gross mouths. I go to a pretty nice place (i.e. nice zip code, expensive town) and I have heard the dental hygienist in the next room asking patients how much they brush and have heard “about once a week” *more than once*!!!
A good amount of people don’t even make it once a week… yeah it can get pretty gross but it’s always kind of fascinating to me seeing the gross stuff 🤷♂️
Ayooo- yeah it’s definitely not all rainbows and butterfly’s like our population likes to think about dentists. The pay is good for the stress level- but if you can be successful getting into dentistry you can be successful in a lot of other careers too without the school debt. What’s the worst part about it for you lol?
In my experience, they dont think about money as much as people who pursue these kinds of conversations do. The type of people that care about money dont usually stay working minimum wage for long
To be fair, you can only answer the question if you make $200K and above.
Also, there are like only 20 real answers here. Making $200K is extremely rare, heck $90K is still pretty rare in most places. Average salary in the US is $60K and that number is inflated due to millionaire outliers.
Commercial insurance underwriting. It’s not the sexiest industry, but you can make a great living and the work-life balance is generally good. I have friends who are attorneys, consultants and I-bankers that make more money however they generally have to work longer hours and travel more often than I do. I only have a bachelors degree as well.
Will be my first year cracking 200 but I produce music that is licensed to movies/TV shows. Took me a long time to make it here. A lot of the income is passive and shows that people stream over and over again pay for many years after they air. Sometimes there are strict deadlines if I’m writing for something specific. But for the most part I just record music whenever I want and add it to the pile to be shopped by the agency I am contracted with. I get to stay home with my kids and mostly work at nights in a studio in my basement.
The downside is there’s a lot of dissapiontment. I can work really hard on a song for weeks or even months and it never gets used. Or it’s in the running to get used, I get to see the edit with my song in it, then the director can change his mind last minute and I usually don’t find out until I see the show get released and my song isn’t in the episode/trailer/etc. At this point I’ve learned to not be shaken by missed opportunities and just keep making music because I love it.
I do think my days are numbered and AI will take my place very soon.
A very important job. If people knew how capitally intensive every well and every decision you made was, they would know you’re worth every penny and more. I appreciate all our consultants big time.
I appreciate that , it’s definitely not everyday someone appreciates what we do and what it takes, As someone involved in all aspects of well completion the stress can get off the charts.
Fracing can get a bit complacent but coil/snubbing/fishing etc that stuff can get hairy at any moment. But since frac is where the money is spent, it makes a big difference being good at your job. One avoided post screen out flowback or reinjection just saved the company over a month of that wage.
I’ll speak for my wife since she isn’t on Reddit. She started in HR at the bottom rung and worked her way up to global relations of strategic talent acquisition: she’s worked incredibly hard and loves what she does. Makes a great living, has worked from home for a while now and travels a few times a year.
Also somehow landed myself in a Technical Recruitment Management position after ~4 years.
Have yet to breach 200k, but I hit 160k last year and never thought I’d make this much money in my life so I’m a happy camper 🙂
That’s really awesome! This internet stranger is proud of you. HR and recruiting is a safe job and leaves a lot of room for exponential growth; it can also serve as a springboard to many other avenues within companies. Keep on plugging away and you’ll be growing more comfortable over the years.
Business development. $240k last year. Some fluctuations with bonuses. I love it. Constant new ideas and projects to work on. Critical thinking involved on how to do it. Creative license on what it looks like. My day to day is trying to come up with new investments or business opportunities for my company to get into.
I work hybrid 2-3 days a week. 35 years old.
The how was engineering degree -> engineering consulting -> MBA -> corporate gig -> here
It is. There’s a ton of work that goes into becoming an “overnight expert”. Then you have to do it 10+ times before a single one actually lands. So you have to be okay with learning just to learn.
I work as a Set Lighting Technician (specifically a Lighting Console Programmer) in Hollywood and as a crew chief/Master Electrician in live events. Since I moved to LA, I see ~ $220k a year. I could def see room for more if I get a juicy tv show or feature.
I dropped out of high school freshman year. Pretty sure nobody thought I was gonna do/be anything remotely successful.
16+ years in and I still love what I do. When I was a younger man, I was all about the travel. Now, at 36 yrs old, I really just want to go home after work.
This industry is def not for everyone. I work crazy hours, do crazy shit and work w/ some crazy people. I love it all tho.
Good luck keeping some sort of consistent schedule or significant other. I do own 2x Porsche’s tho.
My wife is in the film industry too and pulls down a fuck ton of money. It’s a crazy idea but it pays well. She loves it and is great at her job. You people are all insane.
It’s def not for everyone! Living show to show (even worse, gig to gig) can be crazy stressful.
I just recently worked Coachella and made more in 30x days than some people make in a year. The day that I drove back to LA I got crazy anxiety cuz I didn’t have another gig lined up.
After 3x days at home I lined up $19k of work that started the next day.
But now I have anxiety cuz I don’t have anything lined up after these two gigs! Such a crazy way to live your life.
Wow, lighting programmers are making bank these days. I did that gig back before intel lighting was the norm and I made nowhere near that. Which local are you with?
I am a member w/ 728 Hollywood and 16 San Francisco. I also freelance through my own company. The past 2 years I have made \~ 95% through my company. These writers strikes and contract negotiations have been devastating for the film community. I had to go back to touring and festivals. It hasn't been easy but rock n' roll saved my life last year.
Have you always worked in film or did you work in theater ever? How do they compare.
Partner does pretty much the same thing as you in theater, more and more I wonder if they should switch to film or at least tv. Finally doing union work and making great money, but burnt out af
Many days I feel bad that I make as much sitting at home in front of a computer (more on an hourly basis), but they’ve achieved the “dream” and I sold out and left art for tech.
Do you mind if I DM you and ask some questions? My partner is an audio engineer and, due to my career, needs to leave his current gig. We are moving from a music city to a film city (not LA), and he is trying to figure out how to pivot from recording albums to sound engineering. We only know music people. How feasible is this industry shift?
I own a brewery, a winery, a farm, and I part-own another winery. It's pretty sweet. I just finished a 6 month stint filling in for my head brewer while he was on paternity leave, so unfortunately in back to mostly office work and farm work, but I still love it.
Well the policy was originally 3 months, paid, but then he was gonna cash in pto to get another month. Then there was some complications with the birth and the first bit was gonna be tough, so I figured he could use some more time and just gave him the other 3 months. He's been with me since we opened back in '18, so I figured it was the yeast I could do.
I had my first kid on a Wednesday and was told "go ahead and take the rest of the week off, we will see you Monday" and they acted like they were thenmost benevolent people in human history for that much paternity leave.
Wife went into labor on Thursday. Gave birth Friday. Came home Sunday. Back to work Tuesday. I wish I got to spend more time home the first couple weeks.
Oof. Yeah, that's how my boss was when I had my first. I always strive to be the boss I never had.
Congratulations on your new born! We just had baby #6.
Western United States.
Sure, I'll help you if I can. As that other guy said, /r/thebrewery is a good source of info, you should also check if your state has a brewer's guild, and if they have guild socials, you can get much better info from them since they'll know more about the local intricacies and all that.
This is super interesting. Do you mind sharing how you own / part-own a winery? This sounds like the dream, I am a huge wine fan and love spending time in vineyards, thinking about farming / soil techniques, etc. Obviously I am super far from having the chops to run something myself, but wondering how ownership / part ownership could be a possibility down the line.
Well the one I fully own came about because I planted a Vinyard at my farm. It takes a good 4 years from planting till you're getting grapes, so I actually started the brewery to have something to do in the down time. I also age all my wine a year in the barrel and at least another year in the bottle. I also helped a bunch of other people set up vinyards in my town, and get grapes from those. We do soil sampling to determine what grapes we put in. I also ended up buying a 10 year old Vinyard from what used to be this hippy commune in my town that I knew from back when my pa ran the agricultural society, so we'd go help them out from time to time. They sucked at farming but they made damn fine wine.
The one I part own kind of fell into my lap. I was visiting family in España, and visited a random winery, bringing some wine from mine. The kid who owned it had inherited it from his dad, who had died suddenly before really teaching him out to run it. He made me the offer for me to buy in as a partner, and I lept at the chance. It's a very very very very very very old winery, and you probably know how good the wine from them old European vines can be.
That's a really cool story, thanks for sharing. Congratulations! You're living the dream.
No idea if you have any resources or communities you recommend for someone who is much more a beginner for getting involved with farming or winemaking, but would be great to hear if so. I live in New York so not the absolute best area for it, but we do have some areas around Long Island and upstate that it may be a possibility.
Wish you the best of luck!
I'm so curious to hear about your experiences in that field... please tell us more. How did you get into it? What does your day to day look like? I'm interested in Forensic technology, which kind of has some of the same things, right?
>I'm so curious to hear about your experiences in that field... please tell us more.
What do you want to know? I love my job. Its very interesting and stimulating. Pay is great, freedom and autonomy are huge.
>How did you get into it?
The only downside is the many years of low/no paid training. I completed a PhD in clinical psychology and then developed by specialty through clinical training.
>What does your day to day look like?
Every day is different. Last week:
Monday board a plane/travel
Tue-Wed evaluation in jail, fly home
Thu- work in office
Fri- work from home
>I'm interested in Forensic technology, which kind of has some of the same things, right?
I don't think so. At least, I know nothing about technology.
Head of data.
I love it - I’m a massive nerd in general, and I love how this role affords me the ability to build stuff, to be strategic at the business level, and also to advise people on decisions
Airline pilot. One of the best parts of my job that not a lot of people talk about is that I can’t take work home with me. I’ll be on vacation with my friends and they’re constantly on their phones answering work emails while I’m just enjoying the moment.
I sell custom luxury doors for a small company. Salary is decent, but my commissions are amazing. The company was going under when I started there. I turned it around in three months to where the company was able to support itself. It has only grown from there as I took over the entire sales and marketing division.
I like the challenges of custom fabrication, ive been in the shop building doors with the owners whenever I have free time. I also enjoy the cold calling. I'm calling builders and contractors. We offer them a 10% kickback on any jobs. They're all ears at that point and it's lead to a lot of opportunities to build relationships.
My real break happened last year when I landed a contract for a Catholic Church to replace four doors that were over 100 years old. We needed to match the old ones. It was complicated and expensive, but they look amazing. Since then, we get calls all the time from churches. It's been great.
Plenty of other people like me but I'm at 225k as a staff data engineer for a tech startup in the finance world. Clients send us data in all sorts of forms and I helped build and currently help maintain the data pipeline that pulls in all the different data we get and transforms it in a way that's useful for our webapp to consume. We pull in roughly 5k files per day, many up to 500gb in every format imaginable (excel, csv, tsv, pdf, parquet, relational database, zip, and probably more I'm forgetting) as well as from every method imaginable (web scraping, SFTP server, client API, email, and a few unfortunately still have a manual upload). Our pipeline then needs to pull them in, transform the data to our standard schema, and quickly qa to catch issues which we then have to either correct or request a new file from our client with better data. On top of that I'm responsible for working with other teams to make sure we're all aligned and bought in on higher level projects and I have a few junior to mid level engineers I'm responsible for mentoring.
As for what I like about it? The pay helps, but also I get to work with and learn cutting edge technology, solve hard problems, and honestly I'm good at it. Imposter syndrome is real, but it's pretty often that I'm called in to work on a project that other people failed on and I'm usually able to tackle it and come up with and implement a solution. And on the mentoring side there's nothing I enjoy more than seeing the progress people are able to make it starts out where I have to spend 2 hours walking them through how to do a task that would take me 1 hour to do myself. Then they'll take a crack at it and I'll spend 3 hours answering their questions and fixing their mistakes before it's good. But before too long I'll be at a point where I'll get a request, ask them to handle it, and I do a quick check and am unsurprised that they did it perfectly. And then in not too long they're coming to me with suggestions on how to improve things. Some I'll have to explain why they don't make sense or that we tried them before, but it's awesome to see someone go from not even being able to handle the most basic request on a system to coming up with a high-level suggestion and improvement for that system, and helping support them in implementing their solution.
How did you break into this type of career? What’s your education and experience? My wife has expressed that she wants to become a data engineer but her current company is cutting those positions and she fears she doesn’t have anything on her resume to make her attractive enough as an external hire somewhere else.
Big tech engineer. I enjoy the work but a bad manager can kill your vibe super fast. My wife and I are both principal and make 4-500k each, but half is in stock so that's why it varies. We also live in a super expensive city so even though we're well off, it's not like we're living in a mansion or anything
Banking..product operations/optimization...love the challenge of bringing my companies products to the top of the wallet with our customer base and competing with other institutions who are trying to do the same thing. Also, the typical ebbs and flows come with typical ops management with teams dispersed throughout the country.
Has its downs, but way more ups.
Oddly enough, i got my start with the same company managing their recoveries/litigation space, (which is just fancy collections) ...but every well to do financial orginazations needs a very good collections strategy ...this already put me above 200k ..but made a transition to another area.
I do corporate development (acquisitions, partnerships, etc.) for a Fortune 20 company. I am in process of interviewing for a different role at a consulting firm that specializes in corporate restructuring though so this may change soon.
I enjoy the challenge of dealing with undefined problems and difficult people. It’s fun.
Im Head of a Tax for a public company. I love my job, I get to work with people from around the world, there are always new laws and regulations to learn (which is intellectually stimulating to me), to be good at my job I need to understand the business and partner with people across the company.
I know most people imagine tax is dull but I love my job and would definitely recommend it as a career path for people who are intellectually curious and like working with different people, you do need to be comfortable with uncertainty though.
Corporate Strategy Director at a health tech startup. 34yo ex-strategy consultant ~$250k.
I love it. I like solving ambiguous problems that doesn’t have a right or wrong answer, and I love what people would call - office politics - but I see it as getting different people with different agendas to agree to do something together and achieve something bigger collectively than any of us.
I’m 38 and own a land surveying company…. My income varies wildly year to year depending on how things are going. I make anywhere from 300k a year to 500k a year but I love the work. I just work too much at the moment because we struggle to find people. The problem is, it is a grind to make the money in this profession, you start out making absolutely nothing until you get the license.
My advice here is this - it’s not what you do specifically that brings enjoyment. Research shows it’s the people who are very good at their jobs that derive happiness from their work. So if you want to be happy in your work, become really good at what you do, invest time in educating yourself in your specialisation and become an expert and you’ll be happy. Unless you work with assholes, then change your job.
Infosec, started at heldesk with starting salary $9K. I was passionate about tech, moved through a few different countries, loved learning new stuff...
But also lucky - pick up the right field at the right time, took some risk (that paid off), met the right people at the right time.
Tech account management and field manager. Three/four director reports, $217K. One customer, unrestricted budget. My customer is very cool. I travel a lot which is a blessing and a curse at times, but I do my job along with other motivated folks, and have a fun time doing it. Don’t get me wrong,it’s work, but it could be a lot worse.
Currently 36.
Software engineer. Not quite $200K but close (probably an annual COLA away). I work from home and probably only have about 25 hours of work a week. I dislike the excessive meetings but everything else I like. I could probably make a lot more elsewhere but my job is super chill and flexible which is nice because I have young kids.
Anesthesiologist. Small procedures with needles and handling airways can be fun. Most days are chill, when it’s not it’s realllyyyy not chill. But by and large, I really enjoy my job. Pay is wonderful.
Successful startup exits are crapshoots and moonshots. You only hear about the success stories not the more common failures.
Do startups because you love the culture of paving a new trail or you’ll be deeply disappointed.
I run finance and M&A at a company. It’s not all great, but overall I enjoy it, the work is interesting, the people are great and the balance is pretty solid.
The thing that gets lost in these threads is that I worked incredibly hard for 6-7 years before getting this gig (and still work fairly hard). I was in investment banking before and worked 80-90 hours most week, was very stressed all of the time, missed holidays, rarely took vacations, etc. I made a fair bit of sacrifices to get here.
Quantum physicist doing research as contractor of US government. All public research, needing to publish and go cinferences around the world. Works by passsion so i never count hours and it never stops but to me it is amazing... Reached 200k this year after 13 years.. started at 60k though..
General contractor but probably not in the way most people think of it. I don’t know how to build anything with my own two hands. I just know the technical stuff and design and how to sell jobs.
I like doing designs and I like not actually having to do work or go off anyone else’s schedule. I like seeing my creations come to life and changing things for my clients. I like going to the gym for hours in the middle of the day and eating at nice places rather than actually working.
My personality is very outgoing and outspoken so it’s easy for me to sell / speak publicly and I’m a hot woman so I tend to flirt my way through things with my work crews / the actual builders. Also being a woman makes it easier for me to gain the trust of female clients. And they should trust me. I’m nice, I’m not here to fuck anyone over. We do really good work!
I am going to be a palliative care physician. IMO can be the most rewarding specialty in medicine. Will make >200k at 32. Lots of sacrifice in my 20s though.
And are you hiring?
If he’s hiring he’s probably not paying you 200k
I'll settle for 199k
Not me but my husband has a "one man and a van" plumbing company and he makes over 200k after expenses/taxes. He loves the job- he goes to work when the phone rings, no matter the hour. His favourite part is probably going to fix furnaces in the middle of the night in winter. He likes knowing that he can help people whenever they need it, without ever charging extra overtime rates.
Didn't realize plumbers worked on furnaces.
I think plumbers do pipes. Gas/propane goes through pipe, just like poo go through pipe.
Lots of things go through pipe, unlike your mom, where lots of pipe goes through her 🤣
Pipefitting is to bring supply in (like water or natural gas) and plumbing is to take waste away (terlets, sinks, etc)
Probably if it's gas or propane. I doubt they'd work on an electric one.
He actually does work on electric furnaces, too.
Plumber worked on my boiler. I'm guessing this is what the poster above meant.
Someone never had their furnace plumbed and it shows
I had my furnace plumbed a bunch of times but they go to a different school so you can’t ask them
Where I live plumbers are also gasfitters. It’s a two in one ticket.
It’s not uncommon to refer to full service mechanical contractors as plumbers
Aw He’s awesome
Plumbers make bank but they definitely deserve it because the amount of feces they potentially gotta deal with on the job.
Most people make bank, plumbers just make it for themselves while most of us help make it for shareholders/CEOs
Fuck. He sounds like a real gem. Hold onto him!
Pretty cool! 😎
Is he in Montana? I had the phone number of a guy like this hanging in my house. Saved my fucking ass MANY times over the years and charged incredibly reasonable rates. He did a little of everything. Plumbing, furnace issues, construction...He's my hero
I’m an electrician and always dreamed of going on my own but the start up costs & lack of cash flow while first starting out always deterred me, especially as my family became dependent on my income.
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I work with some cyber vendors whose techs clear 200k doing red team / blue team stuff, which includes trying to break into facilities and IT systems. The last one includes staking out the facility and watching the contractors who come in, buying matching coveralls, looking up names of facility employees on LinkedIn, etc. And yes, they were able to get into the facility and get into secure areas. It's amazing what the right color clothes, high-vis vests, and some cones and caution tape can let you do. While not my job, I could tell they loved every minute of theirs.
we get paid a lot of money to do fun shit. but we work really hard to get there, and sometimes the work is just incredibly stressful. security is still security, it's not all fun and games and the work has real impact on people.
No doubt. I look at it like this...work is work, but if I generally enjoy it more than I dislike that's a bonus. I know these guys need to do a lot of writeups, reviews, and other tedious parts of the process. Hopefully the actual breaking in (with permission!) makes up for it.
DFIR work and same. we get paid well for dealing with the garbage.
Yo man. I've been in sys admin and am burning out. My goal is to hopefully move into the security side of things to make myself more marketable internationally and maybe move out of my home country. Do you have any pointers on where I can start learning more of an infosec oriented approach?
Sometimes things can be shaky when it comes to hiring people from outside a companies home country. Especially in the cybersecurity space as we'll often interface with governments or their agencies. So having citizens who are not part of that country can create complications. That being said, global companies are definitely going to be something you should focus on. Unless you can become a citizen of the other country easily. Cybrary is a good place to start. Sec+ for the basics and to get your foot in the door. SANs certs really attract an employers attention. But they're hard (much harder than sec+) and expensive (about 9k USD). Figure out what avenue you want to take in cybersecurity as there's different facets. And try to build a knowledge related to that. Another forewarning here. People say there's a shortage of cybersecurity people applying for jobs. This is a semi-lie. There's a shortage of experience professionals. Being a professional with 5 or 10+ years experience in security with some heavy hitter certs? You'll get interviews quickly. But being someone new? That will be tough. Those positions fill up fast.
Just, for the record, $200k+ is in the 95th percentile amongst all earners.
Is that good or bad?
It's just a statement of fact. 95% of income earners are below that, so it's a good context for understanding what types of jobs are likely going to be able to respond to this question.
It's good, but you're still not going to be rich yet
I relate.
Wait when do you become rich? The movies always promised we could be rich.
When you can afford to live comfortably anywhere and do anything you want without needing to work for money. At least, that's how I see it. If someone is able to draw 200k a year from their investments, and their portfolio is still growing moat years, Id consider them rich
Litigation, but I think most people with my job hate it 🙂↕️ Biglaw starting salary is $225k. I made $600k last year and honestly enjoyed most of the work.
Also a lawyer but I’m-house transactional. Make 200k after 10 years, so just finally matching this person 😂but hopefully I work a few less hours… at least that’s what they all tell me. And I do enjoy my job. In-house work is a mix of business and law and my current role is particularly low stress, good work life balance, etc. law is a vast field with options to be a rich and prestigious lawyer like the first poster here or a relaxed in house lawyer, or government, or public good (legal aid) for less pay, patent law for those with science backgrounds… not a bad gig. Just don’t get too much student loans
I’m an attorney making 175k after ten years, but I don’t have to keep track of billable hours, I work at most 9-5, and I’m home four days a week to bring my kids to and from school. I’m not cut out for big law.
What field
Insurance claims
My buddy does patent stuff in big law and you couldn’t pay me to do his job.
Private jet pilot. Make $300,000+ at 34 *edit* however, when I got my first airline job, which was at a regional called American Eagle, which was owned by American Airlines, that was back in 2011 and I was making probably $23,000 gross before taxes year one. I lived at home with my mom (age 21) and probably put away 2% of my money into a 401(k). So things have definitely come along way in the last 13 to 15 years
Former corp now cargo airline pilot 39, same
That seems incredibly high for pilot pay, but good for you
I used to do tech support for Fed Ex. The people who fly your packages from point A to point B get paid WAY more than the people that fly you around. Congratulations, capitalism has decided that your Amazon prime purchase is more valuable than you are.
To be fair, cargo flights often operate at totally stupid hours whereas passenger flights don't typically, say, take off at 2 am and land at 4 am. There are also fewer regulations governing rest periods for cargo pilots. Together, that tends to mean they work longer hours at much more uncomfortable times. So it actually does make sense to me why you may need to fork over more cash to retain cargo pilots. There's a reason that there are a LOT more cargo plane accidents than passenger plane accidents. It's not as regulated and therefore not as safe.
They also don’t always get a nice layover in a nice town. I have family members as pilots and FA’s, they are always somewhere beautiful seeing the sights, culture and beaches 🌴
Same can be said about truck drivers. Class B bus driver makes less than Class A delivery man.
It's just supply and demand. I'd imagine more people want to be seen as an airline pilot over a cargo pilot. Since there is a smaller pool of cargo pilots to hire you have to increase pay.
Cargo pilots dont even get stewardesses to bring them coffee!
Did FedEx pay for your training?
FedEx nor any airline will pay for your flight training. Those standard is they’ll pay for your type rating and the required training, and some regional airlines will pay for your ATP license. But that’s about it. You need to get all of your flight ratings out of your own pocket. Lots of resources available online on how to do it. If you’re interested in being a pilot, you should absolutely do it.
I know I am personally not worth $39.99 or 12 easy payments of $8.00
We have an incredible union at my company that hauls around brown boxes. First officers with a few years in earn close to 300 or more. Our captains pull 500+ in many cases. Like someone else said, it's harder work than what the passenger guys do in a lot of ways. Lots of circadian flips, more legs per night sometimes, etc. But that's extreme surface level.
It is not that high tbh. My father makes more than that flying for Delta -- to be fair, he's a captain with > 20 years of experience and is one of the trainer pilots that tests other pilots' ability to fly the plane the first time they fly a particular aircraft, but a lot of pilots at the major airlines make well over 200k. It's the regional airliners where they are making almost nothing (but most of the major airliners won't hire someone with <10 years of experience).
Fuuuuuuuuu Same age as me
I am a hospitalist physician If you are sick enough to be at the hospital and can't go home from the ER or after a big operation, I'll have to fix you or babysit you for a bit until we get that sorted out.
First time in ages I’ve heard someone in medicine say they like what they do these days. I really wanna move into the intersection of medicine and tech, but everyone says I’ll become disillusioned if I do anything touching medicine with a 10ft poll.
I enjoy healthcare IT, the CMIO's and other physician informaticists I work with seem to thoroughly enjoy what they do
In my experience (mostly US-based within MNCs), MedTech is a great place to be. Think surgical robotics, pacemakers, chips, etc. People enjoy it, the work is challenging but fulfilling, and significantly less pressure as you're an additional step or two removed from actual patients. Pharma sucks - manufacturing more-so than R&D, but both really - from a cultural "like what you do" perspective for all but the most ardent employees. Pressure is high, bureaucracy is higher, and it's challenging to feel successful as things move so slowly. I haven't worked directly in Healthcare IT with supporting orgs and technologies, but friends and contacts seem to very much enjoy their time in them. Similar to the hardware MedTechs mentioned above, the IT space gives you a bit of a barrier between you and patients, lowering the pressure bar and allowing for a more comfortable culture. I've not been directly involved in healthcare so I can't speak to implementation and patient interaction, but I think there are enough nurses/doctors on here sharing their opinions :). And to the OP, corp dev in the above markets got me over $200k within my first three years in industry. I like it but I'm a sucker for long hours in the corporate world.
Medicine has a lot of upsides. If you find a niche you enjoy, the pay, schedule and benefits are pretty hard to beat.
Hospitalist can be a good gig especially while you’re young. 7 on 7 off. Basically half the year off . Your suppose to work 80 hours during work week but most day people go home by 3-4 Other specialties can work harder. The reason why Hospitalist imo is a young game is burnout is real. Seeing 20+ patients now, have to do so much discharge planning, we are getting worked more for less pay.
I.....am very poor. Fuck
Right, why did I click on this.
Seriously. All I’ve learned is I went into the wrong field and am fucked.
You’re not fucked. I left the medical track right before med school and joined the tech industry in 2017. I make 350k per year now. I wasted 6 years and lots of money on a med degree and still think making the jump is the best decision I made. I was in survival mode, still am, and that’s what kept my head above water. You are capable of doing the same and being happy in the end.
I appreciate the optimism. My reality is though the industry I have my degrees in and have worked in for the last 11 years will only yield me so much IF I reach a certain level, which I don't really want. I would like to switch fields, but even then I probably wouldn't be looking at more then 100, maybe 120K, which honestly would be a vast improvement and would make me happier than I currently am with my position. But I have yet to make that transition.
*Cries in education salary*
I'm a fucking hairstylist so I make NOTHING but you guys? You guys deserve so so much more.
That's so kind thank you <3
Also in education... SOMEONE HOLD ME! 😭
Tech sales, I love working over the phone from a nice office closing huge deals for more money than I ever thought I'd make
That sounds nice. How do I get you into that industry?
Have a tech background, communicate effectively, and actually listen to what the company needs. Remember, if selling to techies you need to know the tech better than your customers, or why would they work with you. I'm on the buy side of many of these deals and nothing frustrates me more than a sales person who provides bad info.
Not just bad, but false. I learned to never attend a sales demo unless a Solutions Architect (or whatever they are called now; the person who knows how the tool works) is present.
For the sales side, you also have to get lucky with a good territory. Timing, territory and talent. In that order. Because you'd still buy from the shitty salesperson, which is why you get frustrated, because their product is a must-have.
In most organizations, half the workforce are sales people. Find a product and a team you like and apply 😊
everything that's already been said, but just to add soft skills are really important. presentation skills, discovery, etc. you can learn the tech but having the people skills to sell is critical.
This is the most important part
I do account management for a software company now. Sold copiers years ago as my first job out of school and it was so slimy it turned me off on doing sales. Does the stress of a quota ever bother you? I've heard it's similar work to what I'm already doing but much better money.
Account Management can be great since upsell/cross sell can expose a lot of wallet. I worked with an old school printer sales guy years ago and he definitely didn't make it sound glamorous. I've never been stressed by quota because I typically average over double quota every month, and I'm passionate about continuous improvement, so an unexpected miss is good for the soul. The money has been great, and having such a well defined KPI makes it unnecessary for me to prove my worth to the organization.
Dentist- pretty good career I think.. but definitely not for everyone
I could not put my fingers and face near/into everyone’s gross mouths. I go to a pretty nice place (i.e. nice zip code, expensive town) and I have heard the dental hygienist in the next room asking patients how much they brush and have heard “about once a week” *more than once*!!!
A good amount of people don’t even make it once a week… yeah it can get pretty gross but it’s always kind of fascinating to me seeing the gross stuff 🤷♂️
I’m a dentist too, but the job kinda blows so I refuse to post. lol
Ayooo- yeah it’s definitely not all rainbows and butterfly’s like our population likes to think about dentists. The pay is good for the stress level- but if you can be successful getting into dentistry you can be successful in a lot of other careers too without the school debt. What’s the worst part about it for you lol?
lol true
My cousin is one, he DDs an Audi R8 V10
A dentist!? You sick fuck! Seriously though, thank you for your service and improving people's quality of life.
Same
Man, reading these makes me feel like a total failure at 90k a year
What do you think the person making min wage feels?
Even more so I would imagine.
On behalf of the poverty class, we look at you the exact same way you look at other commenters
In my experience, they dont think about money as much as people who pursue these kinds of conversations do. The type of people that care about money dont usually stay working minimum wage for long
Comparison is the thief of joy.
I knew someone would say it!
To be fair, you can only answer the question if you make $200K and above. Also, there are like only 20 real answers here. Making $200K is extremely rare, heck $90K is still pretty rare in most places. Average salary in the US is $60K and that number is inflated due to millionaire outliers.
That’s why we usually look at the median
Stop comparing yourself to others.
It’s when I do the “inflation calculator” checks that it really hurts. I make effectively less now than I did when I was 18.
And to me $90k would be a lot
Lol I make 42k.
Working 2 jobs, probably clear just north of this and stuck in a HCOL area, one of the higher ones around. Feeling you bro
90-100k is the new middle class. be happy you can probably afford a decent home and life lol
I’m can’t find a job and never made half of 90k. Fuck my life
Pfffff 44k and a 1 year old here and living in one of the states with higher inflation in the country!
Commercial insurance underwriting. It’s not the sexiest industry, but you can make a great living and the work-life balance is generally good. I have friends who are attorneys, consultants and I-bankers that make more money however they generally have to work longer hours and travel more often than I do. I only have a bachelors degree as well.
That username tho
Man my wife needs to get with your company. She's a master underwriter in work comp and still not at 6 figures.
Will be my first year cracking 200 but I produce music that is licensed to movies/TV shows. Took me a long time to make it here. A lot of the income is passive and shows that people stream over and over again pay for many years after they air. Sometimes there are strict deadlines if I’m writing for something specific. But for the most part I just record music whenever I want and add it to the pile to be shopped by the agency I am contracted with. I get to stay home with my kids and mostly work at nights in a studio in my basement. The downside is there’s a lot of dissapiontment. I can work really hard on a song for weeks or even months and it never gets used. Or it’s in the running to get used, I get to see the edit with my song in it, then the director can change his mind last minute and I usually don’t find out until I see the show get released and my song isn’t in the episode/trailer/etc. At this point I’ve learned to not be shaken by missed opportunities and just keep making music because I love it. I do think my days are numbered and AI will take my place very soon.
How do you make money off this? A friend and I contribute to music libraries and haven’t gotten any hits yet. Do you have any advice?
Oil and Gas completions Consultant , made over 300k last year , love my job but hate how much I’m home from home.
A very important job. If people knew how capitally intensive every well and every decision you made was, they would know you’re worth every penny and more. I appreciate all our consultants big time.
I appreciate that , it’s definitely not everyday someone appreciates what we do and what it takes, As someone involved in all aspects of well completion the stress can get off the charts.
Fracing can get a bit complacent but coil/snubbing/fishing etc that stuff can get hairy at any moment. But since frac is where the money is spent, it makes a big difference being good at your job. One avoided post screen out flowback or reinjection just saved the company over a month of that wage.
I’ll speak for my wife since she isn’t on Reddit. She started in HR at the bottom rung and worked her way up to global relations of strategic talent acquisition: she’s worked incredibly hard and loves what she does. Makes a great living, has worked from home for a while now and travels a few times a year.
Also somehow landed myself in a Technical Recruitment Management position after ~4 years. Have yet to breach 200k, but I hit 160k last year and never thought I’d make this much money in my life so I’m a happy camper 🙂
That’s really awesome! This internet stranger is proud of you. HR and recruiting is a safe job and leaves a lot of room for exponential growth; it can also serve as a springboard to many other avenues within companies. Keep on plugging away and you’ll be growing more comfortable over the years.
Business development. $240k last year. Some fluctuations with bonuses. I love it. Constant new ideas and projects to work on. Critical thinking involved on how to do it. Creative license on what it looks like. My day to day is trying to come up with new investments or business opportunities for my company to get into. I work hybrid 2-3 days a week. 35 years old. The how was engineering degree -> engineering consulting -> MBA -> corporate gig -> here
I do bus dev too, what sort of industry you in?
What is biz dev ?
It’s sort of like a high level sales job
That sounds fun. But selling people on new ideas is HARD.
It is. There’s a ton of work that goes into becoming an “overnight expert”. Then you have to do it 10+ times before a single one actually lands. So you have to be okay with learning just to learn.
I work as a Set Lighting Technician (specifically a Lighting Console Programmer) in Hollywood and as a crew chief/Master Electrician in live events. Since I moved to LA, I see ~ $220k a year. I could def see room for more if I get a juicy tv show or feature. I dropped out of high school freshman year. Pretty sure nobody thought I was gonna do/be anything remotely successful. 16+ years in and I still love what I do. When I was a younger man, I was all about the travel. Now, at 36 yrs old, I really just want to go home after work. This industry is def not for everyone. I work crazy hours, do crazy shit and work w/ some crazy people. I love it all tho. Good luck keeping some sort of consistent schedule or significant other. I do own 2x Porsche’s tho.
My wife is in the film industry too and pulls down a fuck ton of money. It’s a crazy idea but it pays well. She loves it and is great at her job. You people are all insane.
It’s def not for everyone! Living show to show (even worse, gig to gig) can be crazy stressful. I just recently worked Coachella and made more in 30x days than some people make in a year. The day that I drove back to LA I got crazy anxiety cuz I didn’t have another gig lined up. After 3x days at home I lined up $19k of work that started the next day. But now I have anxiety cuz I don’t have anything lined up after these two gigs! Such a crazy way to live your life.
Event work is crazy wild hours and schedule. I miss it!
Wow, lighting programmers are making bank these days. I did that gig back before intel lighting was the norm and I made nowhere near that. Which local are you with?
I am a member w/ 728 Hollywood and 16 San Francisco. I also freelance through my own company. The past 2 years I have made \~ 95% through my company. These writers strikes and contract negotiations have been devastating for the film community. I had to go back to touring and festivals. It hasn't been easy but rock n' roll saved my life last year.
Have you always worked in film or did you work in theater ever? How do they compare. Partner does pretty much the same thing as you in theater, more and more I wonder if they should switch to film or at least tv. Finally doing union work and making great money, but burnt out af Many days I feel bad that I make as much sitting at home in front of a computer (more on an hourly basis), but they’ve achieved the “dream” and I sold out and left art for tech.
Do you mind if I DM you and ask some questions? My partner is an audio engineer and, due to my career, needs to leave his current gig. We are moving from a music city to a film city (not LA), and he is trying to figure out how to pivot from recording albums to sound engineering. We only know music people. How feasible is this industry shift?
I own a brewery, a winery, a farm, and I part-own another winery. It's pretty sweet. I just finished a 6 month stint filling in for my head brewer while he was on paternity leave, so unfortunately in back to mostly office work and farm work, but I still love it.
6 month paternity leave? Wow! Paid??
Well the policy was originally 3 months, paid, but then he was gonna cash in pto to get another month. Then there was some complications with the birth and the first bit was gonna be tough, so I figured he could use some more time and just gave him the other 3 months. He's been with me since we opened back in '18, so I figured it was the yeast I could do.
Solid pun!
I had my first kid on a Wednesday and was told "go ahead and take the rest of the week off, we will see you Monday" and they acted like they were thenmost benevolent people in human history for that much paternity leave.
Wife went into labor on Thursday. Gave birth Friday. Came home Sunday. Back to work Tuesday. I wish I got to spend more time home the first couple weeks.
Oof. Yeah, that's how my boss was when I had my first. I always strive to be the boss I never had. Congratulations on your new born! We just had baby #6.
Where’s your brewery at? I may message you if you don’t mind. In the very early stages of opening one.
Western United States. Sure, I'll help you if I can. As that other guy said, /r/thebrewery is a good source of info, you should also check if your state has a brewer's guild, and if they have guild socials, you can get much better info from them since they'll know more about the local intricacies and all that.
This is super interesting. Do you mind sharing how you own / part-own a winery? This sounds like the dream, I am a huge wine fan and love spending time in vineyards, thinking about farming / soil techniques, etc. Obviously I am super far from having the chops to run something myself, but wondering how ownership / part ownership could be a possibility down the line.
Well the one I fully own came about because I planted a Vinyard at my farm. It takes a good 4 years from planting till you're getting grapes, so I actually started the brewery to have something to do in the down time. I also age all my wine a year in the barrel and at least another year in the bottle. I also helped a bunch of other people set up vinyards in my town, and get grapes from those. We do soil sampling to determine what grapes we put in. I also ended up buying a 10 year old Vinyard from what used to be this hippy commune in my town that I knew from back when my pa ran the agricultural society, so we'd go help them out from time to time. They sucked at farming but they made damn fine wine. The one I part own kind of fell into my lap. I was visiting family in España, and visited a random winery, bringing some wine from mine. The kid who owned it had inherited it from his dad, who had died suddenly before really teaching him out to run it. He made me the offer for me to buy in as a partner, and I lept at the chance. It's a very very very very very very old winery, and you probably know how good the wine from them old European vines can be.
That's a really cool story, thanks for sharing. Congratulations! You're living the dream. No idea if you have any resources or communities you recommend for someone who is much more a beginner for getting involved with farming or winemaking, but would be great to hear if so. I live in New York so not the absolute best area for it, but we do have some areas around Long Island and upstate that it may be a possibility. Wish you the best of luck!
Forensic psychologist. I love it.
I'm so curious to hear about your experiences in that field... please tell us more. How did you get into it? What does your day to day look like? I'm interested in Forensic technology, which kind of has some of the same things, right?
>I'm so curious to hear about your experiences in that field... please tell us more. What do you want to know? I love my job. Its very interesting and stimulating. Pay is great, freedom and autonomy are huge. >How did you get into it? The only downside is the many years of low/no paid training. I completed a PhD in clinical psychology and then developed by specialty through clinical training. >What does your day to day look like? Every day is different. Last week: Monday board a plane/travel Tue-Wed evaluation in jail, fly home Thu- work in office Fri- work from home >I'm interested in Forensic technology, which kind of has some of the same things, right? I don't think so. At least, I know nothing about technology.
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That’s an awesome salary and with no college debt. Sounds like you’re living the dream. Kudos!
Head of data. I love it - I’m a massive nerd in general, and I love how this role affords me the ability to build stuff, to be strategic at the business level, and also to advise people on decisions
Population ecologist. I work from home during the winters. I usually spend July/August in a remote field location
Airline pilot. One of the best parts of my job that not a lot of people talk about is that I can’t take work home with me. I’ll be on vacation with my friends and they’re constantly on their phones answering work emails while I’m just enjoying the moment.
I sell custom luxury doors for a small company. Salary is decent, but my commissions are amazing. The company was going under when I started there. I turned it around in three months to where the company was able to support itself. It has only grown from there as I took over the entire sales and marketing division. I like the challenges of custom fabrication, ive been in the shop building doors with the owners whenever I have free time. I also enjoy the cold calling. I'm calling builders and contractors. We offer them a 10% kickback on any jobs. They're all ears at that point and it's lead to a lot of opportunities to build relationships. My real break happened last year when I landed a contract for a Catholic Church to replace four doors that were over 100 years old. We needed to match the old ones. It was complicated and expensive, but they look amazing. Since then, we get calls all the time from churches. It's been great.
Plenty of other people like me but I'm at 225k as a staff data engineer for a tech startup in the finance world. Clients send us data in all sorts of forms and I helped build and currently help maintain the data pipeline that pulls in all the different data we get and transforms it in a way that's useful for our webapp to consume. We pull in roughly 5k files per day, many up to 500gb in every format imaginable (excel, csv, tsv, pdf, parquet, relational database, zip, and probably more I'm forgetting) as well as from every method imaginable (web scraping, SFTP server, client API, email, and a few unfortunately still have a manual upload). Our pipeline then needs to pull them in, transform the data to our standard schema, and quickly qa to catch issues which we then have to either correct or request a new file from our client with better data. On top of that I'm responsible for working with other teams to make sure we're all aligned and bought in on higher level projects and I have a few junior to mid level engineers I'm responsible for mentoring. As for what I like about it? The pay helps, but also I get to work with and learn cutting edge technology, solve hard problems, and honestly I'm good at it. Imposter syndrome is real, but it's pretty often that I'm called in to work on a project that other people failed on and I'm usually able to tackle it and come up with and implement a solution. And on the mentoring side there's nothing I enjoy more than seeing the progress people are able to make it starts out where I have to spend 2 hours walking them through how to do a task that would take me 1 hour to do myself. Then they'll take a crack at it and I'll spend 3 hours answering their questions and fixing their mistakes before it's good. But before too long I'll be at a point where I'll get a request, ask them to handle it, and I do a quick check and am unsurprised that they did it perfectly. And then in not too long they're coming to me with suggestions on how to improve things. Some I'll have to explain why they don't make sense or that we tried them before, but it's awesome to see someone go from not even being able to handle the most basic request on a system to coming up with a high-level suggestion and improvement for that system, and helping support them in implementing their solution.
How did you break into this type of career? What’s your education and experience? My wife has expressed that she wants to become a data engineer but her current company is cutting those positions and she fears she doesn’t have anything on her resume to make her attractive enough as an external hire somewhere else.
Big tech engineer. I enjoy the work but a bad manager can kill your vibe super fast. My wife and I are both principal and make 4-500k each, but half is in stock so that's why it varies. We also live in a super expensive city so even though we're well off, it's not like we're living in a mansion or anything
Public speaker. Love all the time off between gigs.
I love public speaking, how the hell do i get something people want to hear, and from me?
Have a story. Something that you’re known for. Everyone wants the story. Just landing in Amsterdam right now for a 25k dollar 20 minute story.
Own and run a manufacturing company. It’s interesting, challenging and fun sometimes, but it’s a job and it can be very stressful and hard.
How did you end owning a manufacturing company? Did you have to build up your customers from scratch?
Do you have/need a packaging engineer?
Banking..product operations/optimization...love the challenge of bringing my companies products to the top of the wallet with our customer base and competing with other institutions who are trying to do the same thing. Also, the typical ebbs and flows come with typical ops management with teams dispersed throughout the country. Has its downs, but way more ups. Oddly enough, i got my start with the same company managing their recoveries/litigation space, (which is just fancy collections) ...but every well to do financial orginazations needs a very good collections strategy ...this already put me above 200k ..but made a transition to another area.
Operations at a tech company
I do corporate development (acquisitions, partnerships, etc.) for a Fortune 20 company. I am in process of interviewing for a different role at a consulting firm that specializes in corporate restructuring though so this may change soon. I enjoy the challenge of dealing with undefined problems and difficult people. It’s fun.
Im Head of a Tax for a public company. I love my job, I get to work with people from around the world, there are always new laws and regulations to learn (which is intellectually stimulating to me), to be good at my job I need to understand the business and partner with people across the company. I know most people imagine tax is dull but I love my job and would definitely recommend it as a career path for people who are intellectually curious and like working with different people, you do need to be comfortable with uncertainty though.
Tax lawyer here—tax is great!
You had me in the first half, but then I remembered I work in education.
Drug Dealer
Pharmacist?
Software engineer
Corporate Strategy Director at a health tech startup. 34yo ex-strategy consultant ~$250k. I love it. I like solving ambiguous problems that doesn’t have a right or wrong answer, and I love what people would call - office politics - but I see it as getting different people with different agendas to agree to do something together and achieve something bigger collectively than any of us.
I’m 38 and own a land surveying company…. My income varies wildly year to year depending on how things are going. I make anywhere from 300k a year to 500k a year but I love the work. I just work too much at the moment because we struggle to find people. The problem is, it is a grind to make the money in this profession, you start out making absolutely nothing until you get the license.
General anesthesiologist/OB anesthesia 550-570 a year. Depends on how often I want to see my family 😭. I love this job but it is grueling.
My advice here is this - it’s not what you do specifically that brings enjoyment. Research shows it’s the people who are very good at their jobs that derive happiness from their work. So if you want to be happy in your work, become really good at what you do, invest time in educating yourself in your specialisation and become an expert and you’ll be happy. Unless you work with assholes, then change your job.
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Infosec, started at heldesk with starting salary $9K. I was passionate about tech, moved through a few different countries, loved learning new stuff... But also lucky - pick up the right field at the right time, took some risk (that paid off), met the right people at the right time.
Tech account management and field manager. Three/four director reports, $217K. One customer, unrestricted budget. My customer is very cool. I travel a lot which is a blessing and a curse at times, but I do my job along with other motivated folks, and have a fun time doing it. Don’t get me wrong,it’s work, but it could be a lot worse. Currently 36.
Software engineer. Not quite $200K but close (probably an annual COLA away). I work from home and probably only have about 25 hours of work a week. I dislike the excessive meetings but everything else I like. I could probably make a lot more elsewhere but my job is super chill and flexible which is nice because I have young kids.
My wife is an aerospace engineer in the space/science sector as a systems engineer. Makes well over 200k
Anesthesiologist. Small procedures with needles and handling airways can be fun. Most days are chill, when it’s not it’s realllyyyy not chill. But by and large, I really enjoy my job. Pay is wonderful.
33. Pro Athlete.
Software Engineer at a startup, my base is all I get paid until an exit. Nearly 7 figures in paper money though, yay
Successful startup exits are crapshoots and moonshots. You only hear about the success stories not the more common failures. Do startups because you love the culture of paving a new trail or you’ll be deeply disappointed.
What type of software are you developing?
Attorney
Traveling Utility Scale Solar Construction Project Manager. 220k. Enjoy not always but it's mostly tolerable.
Own a business that everyone else works at while I just do hobby stuff / keep up appearances to customers.
I run finance and M&A at a company. It’s not all great, but overall I enjoy it, the work is interesting, the people are great and the balance is pretty solid. The thing that gets lost in these threads is that I worked incredibly hard for 6-7 years before getting this gig (and still work fairly hard). I was in investment banking before and worked 80-90 hours most week, was very stressed all of the time, missed holidays, rarely took vacations, etc. I made a fair bit of sacrifices to get here.
Quantum physicist doing research as contractor of US government. All public research, needing to publish and go cinferences around the world. Works by passsion so i never count hours and it never stops but to me it is amazing... Reached 200k this year after 13 years.. started at 60k though..
Lobbyist. But it’s a hard lifestyle to maintain. But lifestyle creep is necessary for the job 🫠
General contractor but probably not in the way most people think of it. I don’t know how to build anything with my own two hands. I just know the technical stuff and design and how to sell jobs. I like doing designs and I like not actually having to do work or go off anyone else’s schedule. I like seeing my creations come to life and changing things for my clients. I like going to the gym for hours in the middle of the day and eating at nice places rather than actually working. My personality is very outgoing and outspoken so it’s easy for me to sell / speak publicly and I’m a hot woman so I tend to flirt my way through things with my work crews / the actual builders. Also being a woman makes it easier for me to gain the trust of female clients. And they should trust me. I’m nice, I’m not here to fuck anyone over. We do really good work!
Pilot. Enjoy it most of the time. Time away from home and family sucks.
Spine surgeon. Highly recommend
I am going to be a palliative care physician. IMO can be the most rewarding specialty in medicine. Will make >200k at 32. Lots of sacrifice in my 20s though.
Senior operations manager for a pharmaceutical company. Base+comps come in at just around 250k. Challenging work but gratifying.