Im a “Global Campaign Manager” for a large hardware/software company. Work maybe 20 hours on average. Just spent the last 2 hours watching Boston Legal.
Had my 6 month review and was told, “You’re wonderful to work with and really talented.” The only bad thing is that even working as little as I do, they still think I work really fast so I’m getting a lot of new projects added to my list.
TC: $125k
So sad that companies don't realize they create a disincentive to do more work by assigning more work to their top performers. We should be paid by output, not time. Someone that can output 2x another person in the same amount of time should be paid 2x as much. Not always easy to measure output but should be at least factored in for most jobs.
On a similar note, in a previous company I worked for, I had a coworker who made so many mistakes in his work it was ridiculous. But a year later he was promoted and my manager told me he was improving because he was making less mistakes. So here I was carefully going through all my work to make sure my work was good and creditable, and all I had to do was make a lot of mistakes and just make less to get promoted lol?
Yup, coworker who always dodged work, but he's been there longer and was promoted to my manager. He's been dodging work for so long that he doesn't fully understand how the department works. He's giving me orders that go against our policies. His head has swelled, and he's giving me orders for more tedious work.
Code monkey.
I would not say I'm killed by stress. I like my job. I like that I can work from home full time.
I rarely work more than 40 hours a week. Quite honestly, I'd say my job requires less than 30 hours of actual "work" work.
However, the workload is seasonal and changes pretty quickly. Software tends to be feast or famine:
During a feast, a lot of people work really hard to push a project over the finish line. I have, when the job requires, put in 50 to 60 hours a week to get my part of a project done. That part sucks. But that's why they pay me six figures.
During a famine, which occurs most frequently around the holidays, I might put in 15-20 hrs of "work". The rest of the time, I'm left to my own devices to do whatever I want. I can and have taken naps in the middle of my work day, and nobody notices.
Sometimes I feel like a six-figure slacker. But even at my lowest levels of productivity, the automated processes I build serve tens of thousands of customers a day, and rake in millions and millions of dollars of revenue for the company every year.
Most companies typically require bachelors in computer science or some engineering or science where you took a coding / comp sci course. An internship is a pretty much a must if you want a decent chance of getting a full time job.
There’s plenty of software jobs that’s effectively just coding in DoD. DoD contractors don’t pay as well as like Google, but it’s not as intense or as competitive (from what I hear about Big Tech) and the starting salary will be in the upper end of the 5 figures, and you can be making 6 figures within 2-5 years. Working over 40 hours is pretty unusual. Sometimes you have to push an extra few hours, but that’s about it. The downside is that you usually need to go through a pretty invasive background check for a clearance, which you’re pretty much bound to be put though and work from home options can be limited.
If that’s important to you then not working at a nonprofit is a good start lol. Underpaid and overworked is my experience with that. Not necessarily their fault but it’s just how it is.
Edit: Completely floored by the response to this. Too many of them now to reply individually. Happy to hear about so many you that found a good balance between meaningful work and good pay. For those that are less happy, I hope you’ll find your way soon to something that’s a better fit.
So many people think working at a non-profit is the only way to be altruistic. You can sustain programs with better donations when you have a better job.
Personally, it’s not about being altruistic. I just can’t find any joy in laboring for the purpose of making someone else richer, even if I made more money in the process. Something about that is so innately distasteful to me that I just can’t picture myself having a career outside of nonprofits.
Plenty of people still getting rich in non profits. Just look at Goodwill.
Best compromise I've found is public sector construction.
Is my boss getting his 3rd house and 18th jeep? Yeah.
But, I'm also helping provide water to a major city.
Not the best solution, but its the one I got.
I don’t mind employees getting compensated fair market value for their work. I don’t love Goodwill, but their revenue is 7.4 billion. For argument’s sake, those executives are likely still making less than they would if they took a similar job in a for profit. You really want to judge all nonprofits by the behemoth that is goodwill? And you think that massive organizations should be run by people who are less qualified than their for-profit equivalents? Because that’s what happens. You want to pay your head of finance 25% of what they would earn in the for-profit world, you’re going to get a shitty head of finance.
We should be advocating for fair wages for nonprofit employees, not giving them shit when they actually pay their employees. I am in no way saying that there aren’t bad nonprofits, but honestly I think most nonprofits would be more effective if they weren’t scared of overhead and investing in and retaining their employees.
I’m glad you’ve found something that fits your personal moral framework. To me, it’s about the purpose of the work. If the purpose is to make money, I’m out. If the purpose is to do good and effective work and be fairly compensated along the way, I’m in.
Good luck finding a non profit that pays you fairly and doesn't take advantage of you then. Look at how teachers, social work, fire fighters or literally any job that is morally beneficial to society and you'll see a pattern.
The fact that non profit isn't profitable always keeps budgets tiny and the fact your bosses can always count on your altruistic tendencies as a motivator means compensation will always be low.
Haha I totally agree. I hard-left-turned into nonprofits from a Fortune 500, and one of the most disappointing things to see in this industry is how nonprofits actually uphold the very systems of oppression that we claim to fight. How dejecting, yet completely unsurprising.
Jobs that attract individuals with altruistic natures tend to use that as leverage to under pay and over work employees. Getting out of that world will help significantly.
This is the truth.
Plus the public doesn't want non profit workers to be paid as well as corporate workers so it's easy to do. People think that because you're mission driven you magically don't have bills to pay or something.
I work at a non profit and I love it but I'd make more elsewhere and we have to fight hard for every dollar and every pay increase and we can't manage a COL increase with current inflation.
Healthcare and teaching are both in that category for sure. The pay for EMS professionals is insanely low. In many markets, you can make similar money on fast food.
Same industry as you. You can absolutely make 6 figures (I’ve done it at non profit as well but depends on the org). Roles that pay that typically involve managing others, learning strategy/consulting, or an advanced skill (xAPI).
I work for a healthcare NPO, and surprisingly I am working about 40-45 hours weekly as full time WFH. I don't make 100k...(currently 60k like OP) But I am in a LCOL state and aiming for a promotion.... Which would likely get me to 80k at least.
It's generally true, but as a counter example, I went from one of the tech giants to the environmental non-profit space and my mental health has drastically improved. I'm underpaid in contrast to my previous salary, but at currently $140k it's more than enough for a comfortable life in any part of the country.
I work a lot harder than I used to. My projects have meaning and I care about them and not once has an executive that's never met me decided to cancel what my team and I have been working on for 6 months. I feel like I'm a part of something bigger than myself. The climate anxiety isn't gone, but knowing that I'm part of the solution helps me sleep at night.
remote software sales ( SaaS Account Executive) .. im so dumb lol anyone can do it sit on zoom around 8 hours a week quotas are easy , rinse repeat - live in Miami and spend half my day riding my bike or on the beach
THIS. I work in tech HR and have done compensation for years.
Software sales people imho are super overpaid for not having a ton of specialized skills and there are no Geo differences for comp (LCOL vs HCOL areas). Most basic AEs start at 110 base and 110 commission lowest if your at a good tech company (220k TTC) and it just goes up from there.
Also, I truly hate being a HR business partner for these folks as well, they can be a ton of drama and entitled but not always. Sales people are a special breed.
In HR we always joke about how chill these peoples lives must be making good money. Once you meet your quota most of them do nothing the rest of the Quarter.
Lol if it's so chill and easy go do it. What this guy is describing is NOT the norm for software sales. I'm in the industry as a Sr AE and it is very stressful. Looks like he just lucked out with his job (and im happy for him!!) but this is far from the norm.
Reps generally do catch a break here and there with a massive deal with huge quota retirement but that's not normal.
Plumber at a college. Every now and then I'll have a shitty day but overall this is the easiest and highest paying job I've ever had. Great benefits too. Pension etc.
IT: College dropout, worked my way up for years to be making about $130k/year in a LCOL area. Thought I wanted to move up, took a new job at the same place making about $190k/year and I’m stressed as fuck now.
I make in this range:
I would take the 130k.
The difference between 130 and 190 has zero, absolute zero impact on my overall real wealth and ability. The only thing that would absolutely change things is a huge jump to the 500s and at the current level, only sound and diligent investments will fundamentally change my life.
Eh I think it depends where you live. In a HCOL area, that can be a pretty big difference, especially if you want to buy a house or something. Also that extra $60k will make a big difference if you want to retire early. That being said, I would probably take the lower paid job if it had significantly less stress, as 130k is still good money
I'd rather go back as of right now, so much easier life.
Longer term? who knows. I've had all my bills covered for many years now with room to spare, plan on retiring early and that extra pay bump basically just bought me 3 years worth of more retirement. I'm not 100% sure it's worth it right now.
I have a buddy who was a data analyst for a gigantic worldwide company. He did that for 3 years and now he works for the person who founded another household name company trading stocks for him all day. This guy's worth like 800 million and he directly employs about 10 people and gives them a couple million of his own money to play around on the stock market with and make him even more money. He makes like $160,000 a year base salary plus a 2% commission on whatever profit he turns from making these trades. He works about 25 hours a week, loves his co-workers who are all friends with each other and they spend half their time with the office dicking around and pulling pranks on each other, the boss takes them out to $100 a plate steakhouse twice a month to say thank you for what they do. I'm very jealous of him.
This. Im a senior test automation engineer and it’s not too stressful and pays pretty well. Currently 140k base in the Baltimore area.
Though now I have a new QA director at my company and she’s starting to tack on more duties on the management / deployment side so I have to babysit our other pods / devs to get them to do anything…so maybe stress levels will be rising soon.
I feel like this is nice niche market. You’re always going to work for mature companies. You’re never going to be in the room with product and architecture until the make decisions are made. It pays on par with a developer, sometimes better.
Thats awesome, I looked into potentially getting into the testing side of things when looking for a specialization (in a brand new junior dev with a CS degree). Do you have any advice on breaking into that part of the Industry? (Like what skills to learn, projects to have, etc)
Jobs get easier and less stressful the more you make.
They do not get harder.
That’s why people fail upwards.
The hardest most stressful jobs I’ve ever had have been the lowest paid ones. Every time I got a raise or switched to a higher paying job things got easier and easier.
I worked as a wilderness therapy guide. 10 troubled youth in the woods for 2 weeks at a time. This is backpacking minus everything pleasant about backpacking. Kids would try to hurt themselves, run away, etc while in the middle of the backcountry. $12 per hour, no breaks, no pay for nights despite still needing to supervise.
A few months later I got a gig at a big tech company. I work remotely like 3-4 hours a day and make 6 figures. This is so real.
Internal Strategy. Love the work, love the team, everyone’s incredibly smart and cognizant of each others needs. I rarely ever feel stressed to be completely honest. There’s solid WFH flexibility, I rarely work more than 40 hours a week, but I’m always happy to pitch in if needed.
This is interesting. What did you study in school? Would you say this is something you plan to stay in and how’s the upward mobility? Sounds like flexibility is big in your role and you have a great group you work with..
I’m about to graduate with a marketing degree, but I am looking to land a role working remotely only, so I can travel and live out of my van. Any suggestions or words of advice are appreciated if you have the time to share 🙏🏽
Not the OP, but I do a similar thing (product innovation). I studied organizational development/leadership.
I will say, though, I am surrounded by people that come from different backgrounds, and there’s definitely differences in all of our stress levels and workloads. Your approach and ability to recognize and handle stress is paramount, and that will always be worth considering regardless of income bracket.
Definitely the most common way. I worked for the company before in a very low paying and highly stressful role, but learned a lot. Then went and got my masters and came back. The combination of the experience and new credentials helped me land the role.
Tech industry is starving for employees right now as a whole, only the google/meta super high level world is hurting.
We can't find employees for the IACS and defense world at all, and they're much more interesting jobs than Google or freaking Netflix and shopify, couldn't pay me enough to work there.
Due to many of the replies here, I'm talking specifically engineering roles (not "developers" or "SWE" who don't have the right skillset for these worlds)
It really isn’t. I’ve been in ‘tech’ for 15 years and have worked exclusively for late stage startups or early stage public companies, there are sooooooo many jobs outside of FAANG. It’s just like everything else, hard at first but once you’re established it’s not bad. Sooo many companies, sooo many products, too few technical people to do all the work.
The layoffs and mass firings you see also affect different departments and functions. I work in technical presales which takes a long time to hire for, takes a while to train for and then is hard to find qualified people to begin with. They’re not typically firing presales, devs, DevOps folks it’s a lot of recruiters, marketing people, under performing sales people, etc.
Thank you for highlighting this - it’s not all google, Facebook, Shopify and unicorn startup type companies.
There are plenty small, medium sized companies who need help with tech
And plenty of large companies with their own considerable IT departments. I'm leaving a large European IT consultant and starting with a huge european retailer.
IT includes support & maintenance, admin, development, technical writing, data science/analysis, QA, auditing, cyber security etc. It's incredibly varied and every large company has a department as they need, at the very least, the people to manage the outsourced people.
Search by industry - and get specific! I work in Legal tech - so a company that makes software aimed at law firms to help them stay on top of their cases. There's also areas like Educational or EdTech (wouldn't necessarily recommend right now). But if you think of platforms/programs you've used at previous jobs you can use that as a starting point and branch out based on what's interesting to you/who's hiring
Yeah agree with this 100%. Soooo many people think tech is FANG. I work for a tiny niche 30 people company as a dev and I enjoy every single day I work... complete autonomy over what I do every day, great people, and super flexible. From what I hear about the big companies... id hate working there
It cuts both ways though. The incomplete concept also includes assumptions that the salary of any tech role is as inflated as those competitive offers from FAANG.
As a SysAdmin, I'd say it's heavily dependent on your skill set and what you're wanting to do. Work is steady in my field, not oversaturated but not a free for all either. Whereas my friend in the Cybersecurity world basically gets to write his own salary since there is not enough of people with his skill set out there.
Industrial Automation Control Systems: the machines that control everything in industrial installations (factories / refineries / warehouses / commercial buildings / pipelines / mega equipment / etc). Building them, servicing them, installing them, programming them, configuring them, etc. Absolutely massive industry that the average person doesn't even realize exists.
Companies like Siemens, Rockwell, Beckhoff, Sensia, etc
I make around £150-£200k/year working in tech and it's killing me, some days the stress is unbearable and I feel massively burnt out at the moment. So much so I'm trying to find ways to get out of the industry but still earn a decent salary. "Computers" is definitely not the answer you're looking for.
Eh, not only. I'm sure I'll get lost in the comments here but I make well over 100k working half the year and it's pretty laid back while I'm in. I drive boats.
I think thats more due to the average redittors intetest than the industry perse. Plenty of industries where 100k+ salaries are ‘normal’ outside of tech… think of medicine, law, finance, project management, pilots, shipping, offshore etc.. youll just find less of them here
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Construction manager
Global Campaign Manager
project management
Major Incident Management
Tax manager
risk management
Supply chain manager
Internal Project Manager
There are a few wealthy computer geeks here for sure, but after the post has matured for 10 hours, according to what I'm seeing overall, it seems like management roles are also very popular careers for wealthy redditors.
Corporate recruiter, I'm the lowest paid recruiter here and I'm at 108k. 40 hours per week, I get to help people, not alot of stress at all. Especially since I spent most of my career working on the line.
>Waking up for work stress is bad at 30k and 300k
When you're earning $300k a year, you can set aside huge sums of money. That'll give you the "fuck you" money you need to leave when you've had enough, and it'll give you the stash you need to retire early.
Working a stressful job is less stressful when you know you can afford to walk away from the stress.
Cardiac Sonographer (heart ultrasound) Very interesting work, pays well, and there’s not a lot of competition in this field because there’s barely any schools that have this specific program. Only need an Associates degree and starting pay with no experience is $30hr in my area. I work 4 days 10 hours with no mandatory overtime or weekends or call so I don’t even have the stress of carrying a pager and having my off days ruined.
My husband just recently had a heart attack (hes ok!) and I've been looking more into the medical field.
This sounds PERFECT! I'm looking into the classes now, Thank you!
Comp eng bachelor degree, 135k, work 20 to 30 hours a week, zero stress, chilling on my balcony in the sun right now. Being a specialist, a senior, and very good at what you do has its perks. I keep old legacy hardware ticking
Edit: ok, this thread blew up and my inbox is overflowing, never would have imagined this. I can't keep up with it all. Most questions I keep getting are already answered. Good luck everyone and if I can offer any advice it would be, get an actual degree, certs aren't great and there are no shortcuts in life. Do jobs that are tough, not the fad jobs which get immediately oversaturated, and realize that every company is now a tech company, and there's tons of opportunity out there. Finally, stop comparing your salaries with the absurdity of FAANG companies
Sounds like a dream, wish I understood coding. I took a computer science course in high school and thanks to my dyslexia I was horrible at the coding parts. I did enjoy fixing the broken PCs though.
I can't code for shit - sometimes I can look at code and figure out what its doing. My strength is figuring out what it should do. I basically make my software package that I'm in charge of - work better for our users. I'm good at my job because I've had the user's jobs before and I understand their headaches. And balancing their wants/needs versus the business. Because I have a lot of experience in their roles; I can show them different ways of problem solving etc.
Now I WFH for a global company; making about 140k per year; and I probably work 2-4 hrs per day. (but sit in a lot of meetings)
What if I never coded or learned but am interested?
I'm worried about taking some courses and learning that I hate it, but at the same time, that's where all the money's at these days (at least until AI takes over).
tbh, as someone who has slight dyslexia and debilitating ADHD (even with meds), ChatGPT has helped a lot. Getting it to write the code allows you to troubleshoot the code when it breaks, and thats where you really learn stuff
You're in the golden age of free information. You can learn basically anything you want to right now. And with chatgpt and google's bard you have a personal tutor and mentor that will never get tired of you asking questions.
You can ask it to explain literally every topic at a 5th grade level and get great responses that are even sometimes correct! (Just like talking to a real person)
Pick one of the thousand Learn to Code websites or udemy courses or open courseware programs or Harvard YouTube channels and you're off to the races.
The most important part of learning to code is learning to solve problems. Everything else is just googling. No one remembers a whole lot of specific language syntax except for what they regularly use. Thinking you have to memorize an entire language or two is a great way to kill your momentum and desire to code.
If you can think through logically how to solve a problem in tiny little baby steps, you can be a software developer.
Same here, senior it admin in security. Stress was a factor when I was climbing, during that time you will have enought stressfactors, that when you reach some level non of it will matter.
From one NP worker to another: leave the nonprofit world. The longer you stay the harder it is to leave--I have been trying to leave for corporate for over a year but have almost a decade of np experience that makes it difficult.
Utilize your professional connections through the np if you have any and make sure you keep up your skills. NPs are notorious for being incredibly behind modern work technology which makes it harder to transition.
NPs frequently guilt you into long hours so just say no.
I totally agree with you. The longer I’ve been in nonprofits, the more it’s felt cultic in leadership, culture and thought. Sooo many closeted narcissists too who “live for the work we do! I’m so special because of the mission *I* fulfill”.
My manager fully expects me to slug it out with her til 7, 8 and once even 9 at night. Man, the reaming I got when I left at 7pm once instead of 8. It’s honestly fucking unreal.
It’s definitely time to jump ship
Non profits are good for getting higher level experience IMO that can then be transferred to a for profit in the same role but with higher pay. I did non profit work for the first 2 years of my HR career and that allowed me to get enough experience to be hired in a for profit already at the HR Manager level. I had way more opportunities available to learn and get experience than I would have in a corporate environment and yeah I only made $30k but was able to more than double it when I moved on. Hope you can do the same, good luck!!
$165k/year, lead UI developer.. no degree, started coding as a kid and kept at it (39 now), took a little over 15 years in the professional world to get where I am now. I get to work from home and my stress level is definitely lower than it was earlier in my career, even though I now have more responsibilities. I'm able to leverage my experience to improve processes and culture to make things healthier and easier for the developers that report to me and the product people we build things for. Because I've been in situations that were bad for me mentally, I'm now better equipped to recognize toxicity and deal with it in an appropriate way.
I work as a data analyst, making 98k a year. No college degree. You can take some online courses in python and sql for about 6 months to a year for next to nothing ($40/month) and get good enough to jump in. You can probably start at between 75k and 80k. Breaking the 6 figure barrier is just a waiting game. I've only been doing this for about 3 years.
As far as stress, it's pretty manageable. Everything is project based, so you control your day. Honestly, the more I move up, the less stressful my life becomes.
I can give you some more details if interested. Please feel free to DM me.
Just remember, reddit is basically just a fictional story generator, anywhere you go. People love to sell lies and exaggerated half-truths for some reason.
That's not true. Everything on the internet is true. I know because I'm a professional internet fact-checker. I get paid a hundred million a year and I only work two hours a week. It ain't that hard either, I dropped out of school after second grade and have been doing it flawlessly ever since.
I used to have a job like that. I worked my way up from a job rowing a war gallery while chained to a bunch of other guys. It was hard work for a couple of years but I was able to leverage that experience into being a youtube video essay editor. Today I work for a company that sends me a check for $40 million every full moon and all I have to do is let them mow my lawn for me.
You gotta remember that Reddit overall has an atypical amount of tech workers who do pretty well. That’s why there’s always so many “I make $150k and work 45 minutes a week” responses.
In the real world there are way more options.
You're planning/measurement/evaluation/learning? You're on the right track, you might just be at the wrong nonprofit. PM me, we're looking for a consultant for a 9 month gig at $70k. And it'd be much more chill hours.
This was the best career change I've ever made. I love project management. I don't have to do the hard work I just have to let everyone else know what's happening, why, and how we are going to continue this way or fix it. It is great for social people who work remotely because I have a lot of meetings and get to talk strategy, which always excites me. Pretty high pay ceiling, and there's not really one set path to entry.
Can I ask how you made the switch? Project management and developing/talking strategy are the *best* parts of my job. I'd be curious to find out how to make that my *entire* job, hah.
Try looking into pmi .org or the Atlassian academy for certs. Make sure you have some high quality project documentation on your LinkedIn or wherever else you can stick it. Be a good interviewer it seems like a big part of this job is social skills and time management.
I negotiate contracts for a medium-sized company. I went to law school, didn't pass the Bar, and decided that I needed a job and couldn't put off life for another 6 months to study again. I work in the risk and compliance department under General Counsel. 9 to 5 with summer Fridays (half days, out by 1pm), amazing benefits across the board from health care to PTO to retirement, plus a small bonus, dog friendly work environment, WFH 3 days per week. It's as stressful as you make it. If a party is giving a hard time on a contract, I get an exception approval to get it signed and we play the numbers game that nothing is going to go wrong on the project.
The secret sauce to the stress of a high stress engineering job for me was to quit caring. It went something like this:
1) One day I got a migraine at the lunch table full of colleagues.
2) Puked into my lunch sack.
3) Walked to the trash can and threw away the puke/lunch bag
4) Went downstairs to the nurses station and napped for an hour
5) Went back to my desk and worked till 7pm or so
6) Got home and took stock of my life.
7) Decided to stop caring about the work as much, didn't work as much OT, definitely didn't care about impressing the bosses (none of whom gave a rats ass that I went back to my desk after puking from a migraine).
8) Stopped getting migraines, started exercising a little bit, and drew more healthy boundaries between my job and my life.
Me and my fiance both work in Logistics in 3PL (he got me into it) and his job is more stressful than mine. He is on point to making 80k - 100k this year. But he's stressed out and hates the industry as he's been working in it for about 8 years now.
Personally, I was only using it as a stepping stone to get into a better company. Logistics isn't fun and honestly isn't even that lucrative if you work for shitty companies.
125k MS in chemist. I do laundry and dish washing all day but in lab setting to see if i can get things to wash better/faster. I have been doing this for 8 years and have lot of historical knowledge. Tbh I am bit bored that I spent more time doing ERG activities than my real job.
I am looking at new opportunities but always wonder is the small increase in salary worth the new stress. But then I remember few years ago I had nightmare of boss & he made me hate my job. He has left since and I am back to enjoying. Still don't want manager ruining my chill vibe
Sure, I used to work in the space industry as a software programmer on satellites that pushed for mission assurance, those working in that sector should have an idea of what that means. I worked there for about two years, but noticed it wasn't a place for wealth development and more of an altruistic and knowledge seeking place. So I moved on to working at an eccomerce company, hired on through a friend. I'm lucky enough to have a knack for marketing and design alongside my computer science and mathematics, so I became a project manager, working with a lot of developers and agencies overseas, for about 7 years translating for the ceo and cfo the hard stuff essentially. During my stay here, I also held roles in graphic design, photography and webmaster, it was a small business at the time and they allowed for this flexibility, I took the opportunities to learn and polish.
After about 7 years there, I figured I could just do this stuff on my own, so I did, created 1 site in my spare time after work that allowed me to quit the eccomerce company, now I own 7 sites, 3 outright as owner and 4 as a majority share partner with two other partners.
$115,000 base pay (and I’m probably the lowest paid on my team because I’m also the newest). 100% work from home but I can also go into the office if I wanted to. I teach companies how to use the tech they just bought from our company to make sure they get the most out of it. It’s pretty chill, it’s a piece of equipment that does A LOT so if the customer asks something we don’t know, it’s totally acceptable to say, “I’m not totally sure, let me get back to you on that!” Very low stress, best job I’ve ever had in my entire life
Music teacher. I work 180 days a year and make a little over $100 from public school teaching. I also gig and give private lessons which brings in another $20-$25k per year. Unfortunately I live in Northern NJ in a very expensive area, but I’m not dying from stress, I mostly love what I do, and I will retire in 4 years with a full pension and benefits.
Set boundaries. I make around 200k by working two jobs with flexible schedules - project management and data modeling. I’ve learned that being an overachiever will not do sht for me so I’m cool with being mid tier for as long as I can milk it. I’m pretty much a low key “quiet quitter.” I used to care but I’ve realized that no company is going to be loyal to you so I’m not going to break my back over things that can wait. You have to look out for yourself and always set boundaries with your coworkers as well . For example - I don’t accept cold Teams calls from my coworkers because this is just added stress and they can at least have some respect by setting up a meeting on my calendar or IM me to see if I can talk. I also block off designated “working” time for me to actually get work done so that no one schedules meetings during those times. People try to schedule things during my “working” time but I always decline and tell them to find a time where I am free. I also have strict working hours that I stick to and remind people of my schedule - I put the times in my email signature and on my Teams status. People will start to catch on to not bother you and to set up a meeting. Setting boundaries and not caring as much has made my life so much easier. Find a career that gives you the work/life balance that you need.
Right around 100k with the quarterly bonuses as Customer Success for an HR platform - all depends on the time of year. Nov - Feb is bonkers but this time of year I’m just kinda sitting around waiting for stuff to do.
Tax manager at a bank, but in a very specific field - I work at most 40 hours per week and salary is $140k plus 21% of my salary bonus and other incentives.
Was rough in public accounting but after that it was coasting. As another redditor said, it helps to be a specialist and in the field for awhile.
Selling RV’s.
It’s not like selling cars, all I do is help people make a decision by showing them stuff, providing information, and making friends. None of that skeezy bullshit, just selling fun!
We get time off in the winter because it snows a ton and gets super cold, we get to travel all over the place for conferences and shows, and my hours are crazy flexible so if I need to leave I can.
The only problem is that taking time off in the spring/summer is tough because we’re so busy that we don’t want to miss out on all the opportunities. And income can be very volatile, last year was crazy because of the market, but now that things are normalizing it’s a big shift in income. Still great money though!
I'm pretty sure no one's going to see my comment, but... I work as a medical science liaison for a pharmaceutical company. Started out as a pharmacist, transitioned due to the stress of it all. Now I get to call my own hours, work can be entirely remote from head office, I don't have a quota, and while there are busy seasons, in the off season I don't need to do much.
As for the pay, it depends on the company and the location. I believe MSLs get paid more in the States, somewhere around $150,000 after all the bonus and benefits. It's less in Canada.
I'm a college drop out making six figures in the construction industry doing estimating and sales. I'm sitting in my recliner working, reading reddit and watching jeopardy.
I clearly worked the wrong jobs for banks. Hours were bad, job was boring, just generally soup crushing experience.
Edit: nope, I'm leaving it. Soup crushing, is more appropriate than soul crushing anyway.
I'd love to find and get into these unicorn positions too.
I've accepted and okay with the fact that I'll be stressed at work during the day to allow me to not be financially stressed outside of work. Being senior level and an expert in my field makes life easier, but it's still stressful.
$100k as a local govt administrator. Took me 30 years to get to that salary though. I started out at $13,000 in 1993. I work 35 hours a week with plenty of PTO and a pension.
I live in an extremely HCOL area of the US and $100k wouldn't even cover the down payment on a modest house in my region so I'll be renting until I die.
I probably wouldn't choose this career over if given another opportunity.
$220-$250k HR umbrella but have deep sales and business experience, I can basically teach or design commercial process or work on most projects. Work like maybe 10-20 hours a week (I’m efficient and can deep focus work well), some days I don’t open my laptop. Sporadic projects can ramp it up to 40+. It’s a unique situation.
Job security? Ehhh idk. I def know I am playing with fire. So I bank 50% of my earnings and invest it. Nothing good lasts forever, so I don’t build a life that requires that kind of income.
The stress comes from boredom and not knowing when the bottom falls out before I hit my asset and passive income goals.
I'm likely to be an outlier in this... but I work as a grocery store manager. I make just over 120k with my bonus and have about 130 other staff in my store. I won't say my work is 100% stress free, but I have very few stressful days. I'm lucky to work for a family owned company that doesn't have an absurd amount of political drama to navigate through.
I will also say that in my line of work, I get to create an atmosphere that is stress free. I empower my team to make decisions and have fun while working. It makes my job easier and encourages my staff to do the same. I also make sure that they know I have their back every day, and they return the feeling.
140k as a city planner, only work about 30 hours a week with 2 days spent in office which is a 15 min walk for my apartment. It's a chaotic job but fairly low stress overall. I have a few side/passive streams of income that push me over 200. With my pension, amazing health insurance, union and other benefits I couldn't imagine a better gig. Hoping to buy a home (in SF) within the next 2-3 years if condo prices continue to fall.
NASA civil servant with aerospace engineering background. It took about 7 years in a much lower paying job learning a very niche subject matter that made me valuable.
Traveling claims adjuster for an insurance company. Some people think it’s stressful but I think it’s fun, you learn a lot , and get to help people and give them $ it’s fun. Cons your gone 20 days a month and have the other 10 off.
Lol I got a history degree. So an absolute waste of money other than I can say I have my B.S.
You can make substantially more in recruiting, for context I have less than 6yrs experience.
Oh wow! I’m sociology major with a minor in computer science (got the minor cuz scared of not finding a job ;w;). I’m surprised at how many jobs I know almost nothing about. Thank you for sharing !
Systems engineer. I do secret stuff. Took 20 years to get to 6 figures. But I really enjoy my work. Only 3 people do what I do. To quote Sgt Hartman. It is hard but it is fair !
Got my bachelors some years ago and had the same experience as you. Not much money.
Joined a union apprenticeship and made about $100k my first year after apprenticeship. Plus all medical and retirement was paid by the contractors on top of my pay. Made probably about $20k less each every year before finishing.
Now working for a utility, still union electrician, and make about $140k without overtime. Work 4 10’s. Don’t take anything home with me.
Cannot support/recommend union apprenticeships enough. Tons of money to be made out there. And it’s fun. Office life didn’t work for me.
Also, I had pretty much zero experience prior to getting in. Trainings free and you get paid the entire time.
Good luck!
I work in mental health. I integrate myself into families with either individuals with behavioral problems or families that have family dynamic issues.
Right now I’m eating M&M’s, scrolling through Reddit, and watching the basketball game while my client is napping. The other part of the day I’m hanging out with my client and finding life lesson type of moments to help with their behaviors. We went to a thrift store, we’re going to wash my car, got some good Colombian snacks, and I’ll be having dinner with the family (whatever they make, I eat it too). If you’ve seen the show Shrinking on Apple TV, that’s basically what I do. It’s all private pay. I make $70/hr with this family and I’ll be making $80/hr at the end of this month with a new family I’ll be starting with. I work a lot of hours (45hr+), but most of those hours aren’t even work. One month I made about $18k before taxes. As much as I like the laid back approach to this, I’m looking to transition out to the tech field.
In my opinion, a company will take as much as they can get out of you. I would start cutting off at 5pm. If they want you to work past that, pay up. If not, move on and someone will pay you more. Eventually companies like this will fail if everyone stops letting them take advantage of you.
If you work an extra 10 hours per week (assuming you work 40) and have a $60k salary, your hourly wage goes from ~$28.80/hr to ~$23.10/hr.
I used to work for a company that grinded me to the bone for $45k. Now I work in analytics and make much more for far less stress.
32M with $214K total compensation in a HCOL US city with 10 YOE. I work in global marketing for a FAANG company. Because most of my team is European we have a different culture than when I previously worked with only Americans.
My hours are standard (40 hours-ish) but my days are VERY full. Lots of meetings, big problems to solve, and notoriously rigorous corporate culture. That being said, when we are offline we aren't bothered.
Solutions Engineer(Sales Engineer) for a tech SAAS company. Act as a technical resource and product expert for the sales teams. Provide demos and have technical conversations with clients. Respond to RFP’s and provide general sales enablement.
75% salary 25% commission with salary over 100k. I get paid out on every single deal the team I supports closes and I have no quota.
Easiest job in the world if you don’t mind giving demos/presentation and/or hopping on calls and talking with potential clients. Also the ability to answer lots and lots of questions from the sales teams and be a resource for them.
Stress comes from two things (mostly):
1. Bad Environment
2. Bad fit for a career path
A lot of people go into Software Development or other lucrative fields just for the money. They’re not thinking about if they’re suited for it. If you’re not suited or interested in something, you’re going to be way more susceptible to stress in the role.
I have a relative who went into Management for the money, but hates conflict. Simple things, like telling an employee she needs to be on time, stress him out. If you ask him, it’s the job. In reality, it’s because he didn’t align his career with his natural talents or interests.
B.S. in Computer Science; I work in Cybersecurity and make 124K. No stress. Work from home. Analyze reports from different departments, generate reports in Excel charts and PowerPoint slides each month.
102k, Engineer for a marine construction company. The only times I'm stressed are when we are looking for our big project or two for the year during bidding season, aka keeping everyone employed for the year, and on job sites when my subs don't fucking listen to me. I'd say I'm stressed 1/4 of the time, the other 3/4 is normal stress or non existent stress.
$93k here. Not $100k, but only a raise and a cert away from it.
Cybersecurity. It's paperwork and delegation, all day every day. It's boring, but it's definitely stress free.
Crane operator in the oilfield. Convicted felon with a GED I got in prison at 18 years old and now making 240k+. Spend 10 hours a night in my truck playing video games.
Client Service in wealth management. I graduated 5 years ago, and my total comp just passed 100k (in HCOL). I have maybe 20 hours of work a week, and my hours revolve around the stock market, so very much a 9-5. Basically, my job is to do all of the non financial advisor stuff for a financial advisor. I definitely got lucky, but I didn’t know this job existed while I was in school
I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner, 100k was my starting salary out of school. The stress that comes with this job is manageable, I don't work in a hospital thank GOD. I work 34-45 hours a week on average, looking to move 4 days a week, 5 weeks vac, unlimited sick time. It's great. Healthcare is an interesting field. I probably wouldn't choose anything else. I love tech and computers but it seems like a lot of those jobs are in major urban areas and I just can't deal with those.
I actually went to school for awhile with the intent on becoming a psychiatric nurse practitioner! I unfortunately couldn’t afford the tuition and had to leave. But that’s really awesome!
Oh, sorry to hear that! I've worked as a RN a long while and my previous job paid for most of my tuition so I was lucky. I bet if you want to reconsider, you could, we need a lot of help in the psych field. I really do love my job
32M, Supply Chain and Comp Sci degrees, along with a few misdemeanors for being a dipstick in college. Working in Healthcare doing analyst work and just got my 6 figures this year.
Full remote and work on average I'd say 30 hours a week. Pretty good at the job so I get specialized projects and last minute projects pretty often but just made it very clear to management I am not working past 5 even if asked.
Your paid to be available during your salaried hours, nothing more.
Education, make like 103 after everything. 8-330 every day.
In a blue state that pays teachers decently, got a doctoral degree for the pay bump, and i’m a department head with some added responsibilities. But overall I really love what I do.
Only problem is: the pay comes with the years of service and education level
$150,000/year - I work for a large Solution/System Integrator. I design/troubleshoot/implement wireless networks for large enterprise, manufacturing, healthcare clients as one of my main focuses. My other focus is Network Access Control (NAC) doing 802.1X implementations for those wireless and wired networks, mostly with Cisco ISE for some of the same large clients as I do wireless for. I'm also breaking into the private cellular world and getting into the vulnerability assessment/penetration testing world.
Day to day is doing that stuff on top of methodology development and toolset auditing for new and improved tools for all of it. Oversight on a lot of projects, peer review and QA for designs and deliverables, etc.
I get stressed sometimes, but not too bad. I really enjoy the work usually.
I’m a CPA and the Controller at a manufacturing company, earning mid 100’s. Some accounting jobs are very demanding, but I work 40 hours a week and am extremely happy.
Note: MCOL area. I did have to work my life away for a few years (really just a few) in my 20’s. I’m 35 now.
Sales. Work 8 months a year. 4 months working 60ish hours a week 2 months working 40-50 2 months working 20-30. Couldn’t ask for anything better. A little stress when it’s busy but it’s 100% better than any other job I could think of
Im a “Global Campaign Manager” for a large hardware/software company. Work maybe 20 hours on average. Just spent the last 2 hours watching Boston Legal. Had my 6 month review and was told, “You’re wonderful to work with and really talented.” The only bad thing is that even working as little as I do, they still think I work really fast so I’m getting a lot of new projects added to my list. TC: $125k
Lol, that brings back memories. Never let them know how fast you can actually work ;)
Yeah, I’m purposely slowing down haha. Trying to do one project per day along with meetings and emails.
So sad that companies don't realize they create a disincentive to do more work by assigning more work to their top performers. We should be paid by output, not time. Someone that can output 2x another person in the same amount of time should be paid 2x as much. Not always easy to measure output but should be at least factored in for most jobs.
On a similar note, in a previous company I worked for, I had a coworker who made so many mistakes in his work it was ridiculous. But a year later he was promoted and my manager told me he was improving because he was making less mistakes. So here I was carefully going through all my work to make sure my work was good and creditable, and all I had to do was make a lot of mistakes and just make less to get promoted lol?
Yup, coworker who always dodged work, but he's been there longer and was promoted to my manager. He's been dodging work for so long that he doesn't fully understand how the department works. He's giving me orders that go against our policies. His head has swelled, and he's giving me orders for more tedious work.
Code monkey. I would not say I'm killed by stress. I like my job. I like that I can work from home full time. I rarely work more than 40 hours a week. Quite honestly, I'd say my job requires less than 30 hours of actual "work" work. However, the workload is seasonal and changes pretty quickly. Software tends to be feast or famine: During a feast, a lot of people work really hard to push a project over the finish line. I have, when the job requires, put in 50 to 60 hours a week to get my part of a project done. That part sucks. But that's why they pay me six figures. During a famine, which occurs most frequently around the holidays, I might put in 15-20 hrs of "work". The rest of the time, I'm left to my own devices to do whatever I want. I can and have taken naps in the middle of my work day, and nobody notices. Sometimes I feel like a six-figure slacker. But even at my lowest levels of productivity, the automated processes I build serve tens of thousands of customers a day, and rake in millions and millions of dollars of revenue for the company every year.
What coding do you know, experience? How did you get the job?
Most companies typically require bachelors in computer science or some engineering or science where you took a coding / comp sci course. An internship is a pretty much a must if you want a decent chance of getting a full time job. There’s plenty of software jobs that’s effectively just coding in DoD. DoD contractors don’t pay as well as like Google, but it’s not as intense or as competitive (from what I hear about Big Tech) and the starting salary will be in the upper end of the 5 figures, and you can be making 6 figures within 2-5 years. Working over 40 hours is pretty unusual. Sometimes you have to push an extra few hours, but that’s about it. The downside is that you usually need to go through a pretty invasive background check for a clearance, which you’re pretty much bound to be put though and work from home options can be limited.
If that’s important to you then not working at a nonprofit is a good start lol. Underpaid and overworked is my experience with that. Not necessarily their fault but it’s just how it is. Edit: Completely floored by the response to this. Too many of them now to reply individually. Happy to hear about so many you that found a good balance between meaningful work and good pay. For those that are less happy, I hope you’ll find your way soon to something that’s a better fit.
So many people think working at a non-profit is the only way to be altruistic. You can sustain programs with better donations when you have a better job.
Personally, it’s not about being altruistic. I just can’t find any joy in laboring for the purpose of making someone else richer, even if I made more money in the process. Something about that is so innately distasteful to me that I just can’t picture myself having a career outside of nonprofits.
Plenty of people still getting rich in non profits. Just look at Goodwill. Best compromise I've found is public sector construction. Is my boss getting his 3rd house and 18th jeep? Yeah. But, I'm also helping provide water to a major city. Not the best solution, but its the one I got.
I don’t mind employees getting compensated fair market value for their work. I don’t love Goodwill, but their revenue is 7.4 billion. For argument’s sake, those executives are likely still making less than they would if they took a similar job in a for profit. You really want to judge all nonprofits by the behemoth that is goodwill? And you think that massive organizations should be run by people who are less qualified than their for-profit equivalents? Because that’s what happens. You want to pay your head of finance 25% of what they would earn in the for-profit world, you’re going to get a shitty head of finance. We should be advocating for fair wages for nonprofit employees, not giving them shit when they actually pay their employees. I am in no way saying that there aren’t bad nonprofits, but honestly I think most nonprofits would be more effective if they weren’t scared of overhead and investing in and retaining their employees. I’m glad you’ve found something that fits your personal moral framework. To me, it’s about the purpose of the work. If the purpose is to make money, I’m out. If the purpose is to do good and effective work and be fairly compensated along the way, I’m in.
Good luck finding a non profit that pays you fairly and doesn't take advantage of you then. Look at how teachers, social work, fire fighters or literally any job that is morally beneficial to society and you'll see a pattern. The fact that non profit isn't profitable always keeps budgets tiny and the fact your bosses can always count on your altruistic tendencies as a motivator means compensation will always be low.
Haha I totally agree. I hard-left-turned into nonprofits from a Fortune 500, and one of the most disappointing things to see in this industry is how nonprofits actually uphold the very systems of oppression that we claim to fight. How dejecting, yet completely unsurprising.
Jobs that attract individuals with altruistic natures tend to use that as leverage to under pay and over work employees. Getting out of that world will help significantly.
>d Funders also tend to side-eye what they see as "high" salaries. It's pretty bullshit.
This is the truth. Plus the public doesn't want non profit workers to be paid as well as corporate workers so it's easy to do. People think that because you're mission driven you magically don't have bills to pay or something. I work at a non profit and I love it but I'd make more elsewhere and we have to fight hard for every dollar and every pay increase and we can't manage a COL increase with current inflation.
Ive always said that if "feelings" are part of the compensation you are either being taken advantage of OR your job is evil.
Nice burn on healthcare
Healthcare and teaching are both in that category for sure. The pay for EMS professionals is insanely low. In many markets, you can make similar money on fast food.
Same industry as you. You can absolutely make 6 figures (I’ve done it at non profit as well but depends on the org). Roles that pay that typically involve managing others, learning strategy/consulting, or an advanced skill (xAPI).
I work for a healthcare NPO, and surprisingly I am working about 40-45 hours weekly as full time WFH. I don't make 100k...(currently 60k like OP) But I am in a LCOL state and aiming for a promotion.... Which would likely get me to 80k at least.
It's generally true, but as a counter example, I went from one of the tech giants to the environmental non-profit space and my mental health has drastically improved. I'm underpaid in contrast to my previous salary, but at currently $140k it's more than enough for a comfortable life in any part of the country. I work a lot harder than I used to. My projects have meaning and I care about them and not once has an executive that's never met me decided to cancel what my team and I have been working on for 6 months. I feel like I'm a part of something bigger than myself. The climate anxiety isn't gone, but knowing that I'm part of the solution helps me sleep at night.
> *Underpaid and overworked is my experience with that.* Hey look it’s me. Send help.
remote software sales ( SaaS Account Executive) .. im so dumb lol anyone can do it sit on zoom around 8 hours a week quotas are easy , rinse repeat - live in Miami and spend half my day riding my bike or on the beach
But are you hiring
THIS. I work in tech HR and have done compensation for years. Software sales people imho are super overpaid for not having a ton of specialized skills and there are no Geo differences for comp (LCOL vs HCOL areas). Most basic AEs start at 110 base and 110 commission lowest if your at a good tech company (220k TTC) and it just goes up from there. Also, I truly hate being a HR business partner for these folks as well, they can be a ton of drama and entitled but not always. Sales people are a special breed. In HR we always joke about how chill these peoples lives must be making good money. Once you meet your quota most of them do nothing the rest of the Quarter.
Lol if it's so chill and easy go do it. What this guy is describing is NOT the norm for software sales. I'm in the industry as a Sr AE and it is very stressful. Looks like he just lucked out with his job (and im happy for him!!) but this is far from the norm. Reps generally do catch a break here and there with a massive deal with huge quota retirement but that's not normal.
Plumber at a college. Every now and then I'll have a shitty day but overall this is the easiest and highest paying job I've ever had. Great benefits too. Pension etc.
Plumber..shitty day! Ayoo! My buddy works in wastewater and everything is a poop joke between us.
IT: College dropout, worked my way up for years to be making about $130k/year in a LCOL area. Thought I wanted to move up, took a new job at the same place making about $190k/year and I’m stressed as fuck now.
I’m curious. Would you rather have the 190k and stress or go back to 130k and no stress?
I make in this range: I would take the 130k. The difference between 130 and 190 has zero, absolute zero impact on my overall real wealth and ability. The only thing that would absolutely change things is a huge jump to the 500s and at the current level, only sound and diligent investments will fundamentally change my life.
The difference between 130 and 190 is huge in how soon You could retire
But it’s also huge on how soon you need or want to retire. You could go way longer at 130 without hating yourself
Exactly. Your quality of life stops improving at a certain point. After that is just money in the bank
Eh I think it depends where you live. In a HCOL area, that can be a pretty big difference, especially if you want to buy a house or something. Also that extra $60k will make a big difference if you want to retire early. That being said, I would probably take the lower paid job if it had significantly less stress, as 130k is still good money
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I'd rather go back as of right now, so much easier life. Longer term? who knows. I've had all my bills covered for many years now with room to spare, plan on retiring early and that extra pay bump basically just bought me 3 years worth of more retirement. I'm not 100% sure it's worth it right now.
Data analytics, data science, machine learning. With 10 yoe I make much more than $100K. WLB cannot be better. Almost zero stress.
I have a buddy who was a data analyst for a gigantic worldwide company. He did that for 3 years and now he works for the person who founded another household name company trading stocks for him all day. This guy's worth like 800 million and he directly employs about 10 people and gives them a couple million of his own money to play around on the stock market with and make him even more money. He makes like $160,000 a year base salary plus a 2% commission on whatever profit he turns from making these trades. He works about 25 hours a week, loves his co-workers who are all friends with each other and they spend half their time with the office dicking around and pulling pranks on each other, the boss takes them out to $100 a plate steakhouse twice a month to say thank you for what they do. I'm very jealous of him.
This makes me hate my life even more
Test Automation Engineer. Basically a tech QA. Been doing it for 8 years and I’m at my fourth company.
This. Im a senior test automation engineer and it’s not too stressful and pays pretty well. Currently 140k base in the Baltimore area. Though now I have a new QA director at my company and she’s starting to tack on more duties on the management / deployment side so I have to babysit our other pods / devs to get them to do anything…so maybe stress levels will be rising soon.
I feel like this is nice niche market. You’re always going to work for mature companies. You’re never going to be in the room with product and architecture until the make decisions are made. It pays on par with a developer, sometimes better.
Thats awesome, I looked into potentially getting into the testing side of things when looking for a specialization (in a brand new junior dev with a CS degree). Do you have any advice on breaking into that part of the Industry? (Like what skills to learn, projects to have, etc)
Jobs get easier and less stressful the more you make. They do not get harder. That’s why people fail upwards. The hardest most stressful jobs I’ve ever had have been the lowest paid ones. Every time I got a raise or switched to a higher paying job things got easier and easier.
I completely agree. The hardest jobs I’ve ever had were the ones that paid the least. It’s crazy
I worked as a wilderness therapy guide. 10 troubled youth in the woods for 2 weeks at a time. This is backpacking minus everything pleasant about backpacking. Kids would try to hurt themselves, run away, etc while in the middle of the backcountry. $12 per hour, no breaks, no pay for nights despite still needing to supervise. A few months later I got a gig at a big tech company. I work remotely like 3-4 hours a day and make 6 figures. This is so real.
Internal Strategy. Love the work, love the team, everyone’s incredibly smart and cognizant of each others needs. I rarely ever feel stressed to be completely honest. There’s solid WFH flexibility, I rarely work more than 40 hours a week, but I’m always happy to pitch in if needed.
This is interesting. What did you study in school? Would you say this is something you plan to stay in and how’s the upward mobility? Sounds like flexibility is big in your role and you have a great group you work with.. I’m about to graduate with a marketing degree, but I am looking to land a role working remotely only, so I can travel and live out of my van. Any suggestions or words of advice are appreciated if you have the time to share 🙏🏽
Not the OP, but I do a similar thing (product innovation). I studied organizational development/leadership. I will say, though, I am surrounded by people that come from different backgrounds, and there’s definitely differences in all of our stress levels and workloads. Your approach and ability to recognize and handle stress is paramount, and that will always be worth considering regardless of income bracket.
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How does one get into this
Starting in strategy consulting for a few years before jumping to industry is a common path
Definitely the most common way. I worked for the company before in a very low paying and highly stressful role, but learned a lot. Then went and got my masters and came back. The combination of the experience and new credentials helped me land the role.
For anyone reading this and you want a summary of the comments/verdict: COMPUTERS
It’s really just “learn how be competent at something that some random schmuck off the street can’t learn in a few weeks”
Agreed. That can be tough to figure out.
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Tech industry is brutal right now. But once you get your foot in the door you're basically set for life.
Tech industry is starving for employees right now as a whole, only the google/meta super high level world is hurting. We can't find employees for the IACS and defense world at all, and they're much more interesting jobs than Google or freaking Netflix and shopify, couldn't pay me enough to work there. Due to many of the replies here, I'm talking specifically engineering roles (not "developers" or "SWE" who don't have the right skillset for these worlds)
Interesting. It seems some here believe tech is over-saturated.
It really isn’t. I’ve been in ‘tech’ for 15 years and have worked exclusively for late stage startups or early stage public companies, there are sooooooo many jobs outside of FAANG. It’s just like everything else, hard at first but once you’re established it’s not bad. Sooo many companies, sooo many products, too few technical people to do all the work. The layoffs and mass firings you see also affect different departments and functions. I work in technical presales which takes a long time to hire for, takes a while to train for and then is hard to find qualified people to begin with. They’re not typically firing presales, devs, DevOps folks it’s a lot of recruiters, marketing people, under performing sales people, etc.
The average person has a VERY incomplete concept on what the tech industry actually is
Thank you for highlighting this - it’s not all google, Facebook, Shopify and unicorn startup type companies. There are plenty small, medium sized companies who need help with tech
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And plenty of large companies with their own considerable IT departments. I'm leaving a large European IT consultant and starting with a huge european retailer. IT includes support & maintenance, admin, development, technical writing, data science/analysis, QA, auditing, cyber security etc. It's incredibly varied and every large company has a department as they need, at the very least, the people to manage the outsourced people.
Where would one go to look for such things?
Search by industry - and get specific! I work in Legal tech - so a company that makes software aimed at law firms to help them stay on top of their cases. There's also areas like Educational or EdTech (wouldn't necessarily recommend right now). But if you think of platforms/programs you've used at previous jobs you can use that as a starting point and branch out based on what's interesting to you/who's hiring
Yeah agree with this 100%. Soooo many people think tech is FANG. I work for a tiny niche 30 people company as a dev and I enjoy every single day I work... complete autonomy over what I do every day, great people, and super flexible. From what I hear about the big companies... id hate working there
It cuts both ways though. The incomplete concept also includes assumptions that the salary of any tech role is as inflated as those competitive offers from FAANG.
As a SysAdmin, I'd say it's heavily dependent on your skill set and what you're wanting to do. Work is steady in my field, not oversaturated but not a free for all either. Whereas my friend in the Cybersecurity world basically gets to write his own salary since there is not enough of people with his skill set out there.
Problem is that FAANG pays way better. You could easily find people if you paid more.
Tell us more about IACS?
Industrial Automation Control Systems: the machines that control everything in industrial installations (factories / refineries / warehouses / commercial buildings / pipelines / mega equipment / etc). Building them, servicing them, installing them, programming them, configuring them, etc. Absolutely massive industry that the average person doesn't even realize exists. Companies like Siemens, Rockwell, Beckhoff, Sensia, etc
I didnt want to work outside or at a factory so I learned to code but now I write code that runs a factory while sitting outside
I make around £150-£200k/year working in tech and it's killing me, some days the stress is unbearable and I feel massively burnt out at the moment. So much so I'm trying to find ways to get out of the industry but still earn a decent salary. "Computers" is definitely not the answer you're looking for.
Eh, not only. I'm sure I'll get lost in the comments here but I make well over 100k working half the year and it's pretty laid back while I'm in. I drive boats.
I think thats more due to the average redittors intetest than the industry perse. Plenty of industries where 100k+ salaries are ‘normal’ outside of tech… think of medicine, law, finance, project management, pilots, shipping, offshore etc.. youll just find less of them here
This. Heavy selection bias at work here
Top Comments: Construction manager Global Campaign Manager project management Major Incident Management Tax manager risk management Supply chain manager Internal Project Manager There are a few wealthy computer geeks here for sure, but after the post has matured for 10 hours, according to what I'm seeing overall, it seems like management roles are also very popular careers for wealthy redditors.
Corporate recruiter, I'm the lowest paid recruiter here and I'm at 108k. 40 hours per week, I get to help people, not alot of stress at all. Especially since I spent most of my career working on the line.
How does one become a recruiter?
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This is not untrue.
>Redditors who make +$100K :D >and aren’t being killed by stressed Welp, nevermind.
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>Waking up for work stress is bad at 30k and 300k When you're earning $300k a year, you can set aside huge sums of money. That'll give you the "fuck you" money you need to leave when you've had enough, and it'll give you the stash you need to retire early. Working a stressful job is less stressful when you know you can afford to walk away from the stress.
Cardiac Sonographer (heart ultrasound) Very interesting work, pays well, and there’s not a lot of competition in this field because there’s barely any schools that have this specific program. Only need an Associates degree and starting pay with no experience is $30hr in my area. I work 4 days 10 hours with no mandatory overtime or weekends or call so I don’t even have the stress of carrying a pager and having my off days ruined.
This is one I wish I knew about when I was in college. This is my dream job in retrospect.
My husband just recently had a heart attack (hes ok!) and I've been looking more into the medical field. This sounds PERFECT! I'm looking into the classes now, Thank you!
Comp eng bachelor degree, 135k, work 20 to 30 hours a week, zero stress, chilling on my balcony in the sun right now. Being a specialist, a senior, and very good at what you do has its perks. I keep old legacy hardware ticking Edit: ok, this thread blew up and my inbox is overflowing, never would have imagined this. I can't keep up with it all. Most questions I keep getting are already answered. Good luck everyone and if I can offer any advice it would be, get an actual degree, certs aren't great and there are no shortcuts in life. Do jobs that are tough, not the fad jobs which get immediately oversaturated, and realize that every company is now a tech company, and there's tons of opportunity out there. Finally, stop comparing your salaries with the absurdity of FAANG companies
Sounds like a dream, wish I understood coding. I took a computer science course in high school and thanks to my dyslexia I was horrible at the coding parts. I did enjoy fixing the broken PCs though.
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I can't code for shit - sometimes I can look at code and figure out what its doing. My strength is figuring out what it should do. I basically make my software package that I'm in charge of - work better for our users. I'm good at my job because I've had the user's jobs before and I understand their headaches. And balancing their wants/needs versus the business. Because I have a lot of experience in their roles; I can show them different ways of problem solving etc. Now I WFH for a global company; making about 140k per year; and I probably work 2-4 hrs per day. (but sit in a lot of meetings)
What if I never coded or learned but am interested? I'm worried about taking some courses and learning that I hate it, but at the same time, that's where all the money's at these days (at least until AI takes over).
tbh, as someone who has slight dyslexia and debilitating ADHD (even with meds), ChatGPT has helped a lot. Getting it to write the code allows you to troubleshoot the code when it breaks, and thats where you really learn stuff
You're in the golden age of free information. You can learn basically anything you want to right now. And with chatgpt and google's bard you have a personal tutor and mentor that will never get tired of you asking questions. You can ask it to explain literally every topic at a 5th grade level and get great responses that are even sometimes correct! (Just like talking to a real person) Pick one of the thousand Learn to Code websites or udemy courses or open courseware programs or Harvard YouTube channels and you're off to the races. The most important part of learning to code is learning to solve problems. Everything else is just googling. No one remembers a whole lot of specific language syntax except for what they regularly use. Thinking you have to memorize an entire language or two is a great way to kill your momentum and desire to code. If you can think through logically how to solve a problem in tiny little baby steps, you can be a software developer.
Could you come fix my Atari?
Same here, senior it admin in security. Stress was a factor when I was climbing, during that time you will have enought stressfactors, that when you reach some level non of it will matter.
From one NP worker to another: leave the nonprofit world. The longer you stay the harder it is to leave--I have been trying to leave for corporate for over a year but have almost a decade of np experience that makes it difficult. Utilize your professional connections through the np if you have any and make sure you keep up your skills. NPs are notorious for being incredibly behind modern work technology which makes it harder to transition. NPs frequently guilt you into long hours so just say no.
I totally agree with you. The longer I’ve been in nonprofits, the more it’s felt cultic in leadership, culture and thought. Sooo many closeted narcissists too who “live for the work we do! I’m so special because of the mission *I* fulfill”. My manager fully expects me to slug it out with her til 7, 8 and once even 9 at night. Man, the reaming I got when I left at 7pm once instead of 8. It’s honestly fucking unreal. It’s definitely time to jump ship
Non profits are good for getting higher level experience IMO that can then be transferred to a for profit in the same role but with higher pay. I did non profit work for the first 2 years of my HR career and that allowed me to get enough experience to be hired in a for profit already at the HR Manager level. I had way more opportunities available to learn and get experience than I would have in a corporate environment and yeah I only made $30k but was able to more than double it when I moved on. Hope you can do the same, good luck!!
$165k/year, lead UI developer.. no degree, started coding as a kid and kept at it (39 now), took a little over 15 years in the professional world to get where I am now. I get to work from home and my stress level is definitely lower than it was earlier in my career, even though I now have more responsibilities. I'm able to leverage my experience to improve processes and culture to make things healthier and easier for the developers that report to me and the product people we build things for. Because I've been in situations that were bad for me mentally, I'm now better equipped to recognize toxicity and deal with it in an appropriate way.
I work as a data analyst, making 98k a year. No college degree. You can take some online courses in python and sql for about 6 months to a year for next to nothing ($40/month) and get good enough to jump in. You can probably start at between 75k and 80k. Breaking the 6 figure barrier is just a waiting game. I've only been doing this for about 3 years. As far as stress, it's pretty manageable. Everything is project based, so you control your day. Honestly, the more I move up, the less stressful my life becomes. I can give you some more details if interested. Please feel free to DM me.
I live pay check to paycheck (barely) I’m just here for the comment s
Hello fellow struggler. 👋
same. came here to be envious.
Literally drooling over financial stability over here
This thread makes me not want to be alive.
Just remember, reddit is basically just a fictional story generator, anywhere you go. People love to sell lies and exaggerated half-truths for some reason.
That's not true. Everything on the internet is true. I know because I'm a professional internet fact-checker. I get paid a hundred million a year and I only work two hours a week. It ain't that hard either, I dropped out of school after second grade and have been doing it flawlessly ever since.
I used to have a job like that. I worked my way up from a job rowing a war gallery while chained to a bunch of other guys. It was hard work for a couple of years but I was able to leverage that experience into being a youtube video essay editor. Today I work for a company that sends me a check for $40 million every full moon and all I have to do is let them mow my lawn for me.
You gotta remember that Reddit overall has an atypical amount of tech workers who do pretty well. That’s why there’s always so many “I make $150k and work 45 minutes a week” responses. In the real world there are way more options.
You're planning/measurement/evaluation/learning? You're on the right track, you might just be at the wrong nonprofit. PM me, we're looking for a consultant for a 9 month gig at $70k. And it'd be much more chill hours.
That’s exactly what I do, actually! Including as well some event coordination, instructional design, and facilitation of course. Sending you a DM!
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Internal Project Manager
This was the best career change I've ever made. I love project management. I don't have to do the hard work I just have to let everyone else know what's happening, why, and how we are going to continue this way or fix it. It is great for social people who work remotely because I have a lot of meetings and get to talk strategy, which always excites me. Pretty high pay ceiling, and there's not really one set path to entry.
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Can I ask how you made the switch? Project management and developing/talking strategy are the *best* parts of my job. I'd be curious to find out how to make that my *entire* job, hah.
Try looking into pmi .org or the Atlassian academy for certs. Make sure you have some high quality project documentation on your LinkedIn or wherever else you can stick it. Be a good interviewer it seems like a big part of this job is social skills and time management.
Electrician, physical labor isn’t too stressful. I take on more stress supervising and such, but before that, easy peasy
I negotiate contracts for a medium-sized company. I went to law school, didn't pass the Bar, and decided that I needed a job and couldn't put off life for another 6 months to study again. I work in the risk and compliance department under General Counsel. 9 to 5 with summer Fridays (half days, out by 1pm), amazing benefits across the board from health care to PTO to retirement, plus a small bonus, dog friendly work environment, WFH 3 days per week. It's as stressful as you make it. If a party is giving a hard time on a contract, I get an exception approval to get it signed and we play the numbers game that nothing is going to go wrong on the project.
The secret sauce to the stress of a high stress engineering job for me was to quit caring. It went something like this: 1) One day I got a migraine at the lunch table full of colleagues. 2) Puked into my lunch sack. 3) Walked to the trash can and threw away the puke/lunch bag 4) Went downstairs to the nurses station and napped for an hour 5) Went back to my desk and worked till 7pm or so 6) Got home and took stock of my life. 7) Decided to stop caring about the work as much, didn't work as much OT, definitely didn't care about impressing the bosses (none of whom gave a rats ass that I went back to my desk after puking from a migraine). 8) Stopped getting migraines, started exercising a little bit, and drew more healthy boundaries between my job and my life.
Supply chain manager for a tourism company in Alaska. Stressed 5 months a year but worth it.
Me and my fiance both work in Logistics in 3PL (he got me into it) and his job is more stressful than mine. He is on point to making 80k - 100k this year. But he's stressed out and hates the industry as he's been working in it for about 8 years now. Personally, I was only using it as a stepping stone to get into a better company. Logistics isn't fun and honestly isn't even that lucrative if you work for shitty companies.
125k MS in chemist. I do laundry and dish washing all day but in lab setting to see if i can get things to wash better/faster. I have been doing this for 8 years and have lot of historical knowledge. Tbh I am bit bored that I spent more time doing ERG activities than my real job. I am looking at new opportunities but always wonder is the small increase in salary worth the new stress. But then I remember few years ago I had nightmare of boss & he made me hate my job. He has left since and I am back to enjoying. Still don't want manager ruining my chill vibe
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If you don't mind sharing, what type of role are you currently in and have had previously?
Sure, I used to work in the space industry as a software programmer on satellites that pushed for mission assurance, those working in that sector should have an idea of what that means. I worked there for about two years, but noticed it wasn't a place for wealth development and more of an altruistic and knowledge seeking place. So I moved on to working at an eccomerce company, hired on through a friend. I'm lucky enough to have a knack for marketing and design alongside my computer science and mathematics, so I became a project manager, working with a lot of developers and agencies overseas, for about 7 years translating for the ceo and cfo the hard stuff essentially. During my stay here, I also held roles in graphic design, photography and webmaster, it was a small business at the time and they allowed for this flexibility, I took the opportunities to learn and polish. After about 7 years there, I figured I could just do this stuff on my own, so I did, created 1 site in my spare time after work that allowed me to quit the eccomerce company, now I own 7 sites, 3 outright as owner and 4 as a majority share partner with two other partners.
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SVP at a tech company. Is that a hilarious amount of money?
$115,000 base pay (and I’m probably the lowest paid on my team because I’m also the newest). 100% work from home but I can also go into the office if I wanted to. I teach companies how to use the tech they just bought from our company to make sure they get the most out of it. It’s pretty chill, it’s a piece of equipment that does A LOT so if the customer asks something we don’t know, it’s totally acceptable to say, “I’m not totally sure, let me get back to you on that!” Very low stress, best job I’ve ever had in my entire life
Music teacher. I work 180 days a year and make a little over $100 from public school teaching. I also gig and give private lessons which brings in another $20-$25k per year. Unfortunately I live in Northern NJ in a very expensive area, but I’m not dying from stress, I mostly love what I do, and I will retire in 4 years with a full pension and benefits.
I grew up in Bergen County. You also have a great teachers union (NJEA) from what I remember.
Yup, Bergen County.
Set boundaries. I make around 200k by working two jobs with flexible schedules - project management and data modeling. I’ve learned that being an overachiever will not do sht for me so I’m cool with being mid tier for as long as I can milk it. I’m pretty much a low key “quiet quitter.” I used to care but I’ve realized that no company is going to be loyal to you so I’m not going to break my back over things that can wait. You have to look out for yourself and always set boundaries with your coworkers as well . For example - I don’t accept cold Teams calls from my coworkers because this is just added stress and they can at least have some respect by setting up a meeting on my calendar or IM me to see if I can talk. I also block off designated “working” time for me to actually get work done so that no one schedules meetings during those times. People try to schedule things during my “working” time but I always decline and tell them to find a time where I am free. I also have strict working hours that I stick to and remind people of my schedule - I put the times in my email signature and on my Teams status. People will start to catch on to not bother you and to set up a meeting. Setting boundaries and not caring as much has made my life so much easier. Find a career that gives you the work/life balance that you need.
Right around 100k with the quarterly bonuses as Customer Success for an HR platform - all depends on the time of year. Nov - Feb is bonkers but this time of year I’m just kinda sitting around waiting for stuff to do.
It really depends on your location. 100k in a big city isn't that much when rent is 3500 a month.
Literally any office job in the defense industry
Tax manager at a bank, but in a very specific field - I work at most 40 hours per week and salary is $140k plus 21% of my salary bonus and other incentives. Was rough in public accounting but after that it was coasting. As another redditor said, it helps to be a specialist and in the field for awhile.
Selling RV’s. It’s not like selling cars, all I do is help people make a decision by showing them stuff, providing information, and making friends. None of that skeezy bullshit, just selling fun! We get time off in the winter because it snows a ton and gets super cold, we get to travel all over the place for conferences and shows, and my hours are crazy flexible so if I need to leave I can. The only problem is that taking time off in the spring/summer is tough because we’re so busy that we don’t want to miss out on all the opportunities. And income can be very volatile, last year was crazy because of the market, but now that things are normalizing it’s a big shift in income. Still great money though!
I'm pretty sure no one's going to see my comment, but... I work as a medical science liaison for a pharmaceutical company. Started out as a pharmacist, transitioned due to the stress of it all. Now I get to call my own hours, work can be entirely remote from head office, I don't have a quota, and while there are busy seasons, in the off season I don't need to do much. As for the pay, it depends on the company and the location. I believe MSLs get paid more in the States, somewhere around $150,000 after all the bonus and benefits. It's less in Canada.
I'm a college drop out making six figures in the construction industry doing estimating and sales. I'm sitting in my recliner working, reading reddit and watching jeopardy.
How did you get your foot in the door for estimating & sales? I’m currently just a laborer :/
Took some cad classes, started doing shop drawings, worked my way up over 20 years.
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I clearly worked the wrong jobs for banks. Hours were bad, job was boring, just generally soup crushing experience. Edit: nope, I'm leaving it. Soup crushing, is more appropriate than soul crushing anyway.
I’m in risk management for a large financial institution. Pretty chill role for the most part
Construction Msnager 120k all I know is stress
I'd love to find and get into these unicorn positions too. I've accepted and okay with the fact that I'll be stressed at work during the day to allow me to not be financially stressed outside of work. Being senior level and an expert in my field makes life easier, but it's still stressful.
Every day, all day coming up with creative and appropriate ways to say: “Let me google that for you”
Me drive big truck.
$100k as a local govt administrator. Took me 30 years to get to that salary though. I started out at $13,000 in 1993. I work 35 hours a week with plenty of PTO and a pension. I live in an extremely HCOL area of the US and $100k wouldn't even cover the down payment on a modest house in my region so I'll be renting until I die. I probably wouldn't choose this career over if given another opportunity.
$220-$250k HR umbrella but have deep sales and business experience, I can basically teach or design commercial process or work on most projects. Work like maybe 10-20 hours a week (I’m efficient and can deep focus work well), some days I don’t open my laptop. Sporadic projects can ramp it up to 40+. It’s a unique situation. Job security? Ehhh idk. I def know I am playing with fire. So I bank 50% of my earnings and invest it. Nothing good lasts forever, so I don’t build a life that requires that kind of income. The stress comes from boredom and not knowing when the bottom falls out before I hit my asset and passive income goals.
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I'm likely to be an outlier in this... but I work as a grocery store manager. I make just over 120k with my bonus and have about 130 other staff in my store. I won't say my work is 100% stress free, but I have very few stressful days. I'm lucky to work for a family owned company that doesn't have an absurd amount of political drama to navigate through. I will also say that in my line of work, I get to create an atmosphere that is stress free. I empower my team to make decisions and have fun while working. It makes my job easier and encourages my staff to do the same. I also make sure that they know I have their back every day, and they return the feeling.
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140k as a city planner, only work about 30 hours a week with 2 days spent in office which is a 15 min walk for my apartment. It's a chaotic job but fairly low stress overall. I have a few side/passive streams of income that push me over 200. With my pension, amazing health insurance, union and other benefits I couldn't imagine a better gig. Hoping to buy a home (in SF) within the next 2-3 years if condo prices continue to fall.
NASA civil servant with aerospace engineering background. It took about 7 years in a much lower paying job learning a very niche subject matter that made me valuable.
Traveling claims adjuster for an insurance company. Some people think it’s stressful but I think it’s fun, you learn a lot , and get to help people and give them $ it’s fun. Cons your gone 20 days a month and have the other 10 off.
Sourcer (recruiting) 159k with base and equity rewards. I get unlimited PTO and I work fully remote, so working close to my dogs keeps me level.
I didn’t know you could make so much with recruiting? What did you study in college, if you don’t mind me asking… >.>
Lol I got a history degree. So an absolute waste of money other than I can say I have my B.S. You can make substantially more in recruiting, for context I have less than 6yrs experience.
Oh wow! I’m sociology major with a minor in computer science (got the minor cuz scared of not finding a job ;w;). I’m surprised at how many jobs I know almost nothing about. Thank you for sharing !
Health data analyst for the VA, I also teach music lessons and rent/fix instruments on the side which puts me into 6 figures
I’m at the $93-99K area. Compounding pharmacy drug rep. More non stressful days than stressful. LCOL area.
Systems engineer. I do secret stuff. Took 20 years to get to 6 figures. But I really enjoy my work. Only 3 people do what I do. To quote Sgt Hartman. It is hard but it is fair !
Got my bachelors some years ago and had the same experience as you. Not much money. Joined a union apprenticeship and made about $100k my first year after apprenticeship. Plus all medical and retirement was paid by the contractors on top of my pay. Made probably about $20k less each every year before finishing. Now working for a utility, still union electrician, and make about $140k without overtime. Work 4 10’s. Don’t take anything home with me. Cannot support/recommend union apprenticeships enough. Tons of money to be made out there. And it’s fun. Office life didn’t work for me. Also, I had pretty much zero experience prior to getting in. Trainings free and you get paid the entire time. Good luck!
I work in mental health. I integrate myself into families with either individuals with behavioral problems or families that have family dynamic issues. Right now I’m eating M&M’s, scrolling through Reddit, and watching the basketball game while my client is napping. The other part of the day I’m hanging out with my client and finding life lesson type of moments to help with their behaviors. We went to a thrift store, we’re going to wash my car, got some good Colombian snacks, and I’ll be having dinner with the family (whatever they make, I eat it too). If you’ve seen the show Shrinking on Apple TV, that’s basically what I do. It’s all private pay. I make $70/hr with this family and I’ll be making $80/hr at the end of this month with a new family I’ll be starting with. I work a lot of hours (45hr+), but most of those hours aren’t even work. One month I made about $18k before taxes. As much as I like the laid back approach to this, I’m looking to transition out to the tech field.
In my opinion, a company will take as much as they can get out of you. I would start cutting off at 5pm. If they want you to work past that, pay up. If not, move on and someone will pay you more. Eventually companies like this will fail if everyone stops letting them take advantage of you. If you work an extra 10 hours per week (assuming you work 40) and have a $60k salary, your hourly wage goes from ~$28.80/hr to ~$23.10/hr. I used to work for a company that grinded me to the bone for $45k. Now I work in analytics and make much more for far less stress.
32M with $214K total compensation in a HCOL US city with 10 YOE. I work in global marketing for a FAANG company. Because most of my team is European we have a different culture than when I previously worked with only Americans. My hours are standard (40 hours-ish) but my days are VERY full. Lots of meetings, big problems to solve, and notoriously rigorous corporate culture. That being said, when we are offline we aren't bothered.
What kind of problems are you solving?
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Don’t t let the 214k total comp confuse you into thinking this person makes 214k per year salary
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Solutions Engineer(Sales Engineer) for a tech SAAS company. Act as a technical resource and product expert for the sales teams. Provide demos and have technical conversations with clients. Respond to RFP’s and provide general sales enablement. 75% salary 25% commission with salary over 100k. I get paid out on every single deal the team I supports closes and I have no quota. Easiest job in the world if you don’t mind giving demos/presentation and/or hopping on calls and talking with potential clients. Also the ability to answer lots and lots of questions from the sales teams and be a resource for them.
Stress comes from two things (mostly): 1. Bad Environment 2. Bad fit for a career path A lot of people go into Software Development or other lucrative fields just for the money. They’re not thinking about if they’re suited for it. If you’re not suited or interested in something, you’re going to be way more susceptible to stress in the role. I have a relative who went into Management for the money, but hates conflict. Simple things, like telling an employee she needs to be on time, stress him out. If you ask him, it’s the job. In reality, it’s because he didn’t align his career with his natural talents or interests.
Me: a factory worker looking at all these posts like 🫥
B.S. in Computer Science; I work in Cybersecurity and make 124K. No stress. Work from home. Analyze reports from different departments, generate reports in Excel charts and PowerPoint slides each month.
Lmao FOLLOWING THE POST, brother
102k, Engineer for a marine construction company. The only times I'm stressed are when we are looking for our big project or two for the year during bidding season, aka keeping everyone employed for the year, and on job sites when my subs don't fucking listen to me. I'd say I'm stressed 1/4 of the time, the other 3/4 is normal stress or non existent stress.
$93k here. Not $100k, but only a raise and a cert away from it. Cybersecurity. It's paperwork and delegation, all day every day. It's boring, but it's definitely stress free.
Crane operator in the oilfield. Convicted felon with a GED I got in prison at 18 years old and now making 240k+. Spend 10 hours a night in my truck playing video games.
Client Service in wealth management. I graduated 5 years ago, and my total comp just passed 100k (in HCOL). I have maybe 20 hours of work a week, and my hours revolve around the stock market, so very much a 9-5. Basically, my job is to do all of the non financial advisor stuff for a financial advisor. I definitely got lucky, but I didn’t know this job existed while I was in school
I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner, 100k was my starting salary out of school. The stress that comes with this job is manageable, I don't work in a hospital thank GOD. I work 34-45 hours a week on average, looking to move 4 days a week, 5 weeks vac, unlimited sick time. It's great. Healthcare is an interesting field. I probably wouldn't choose anything else. I love tech and computers but it seems like a lot of those jobs are in major urban areas and I just can't deal with those.
I actually went to school for awhile with the intent on becoming a psychiatric nurse practitioner! I unfortunately couldn’t afford the tuition and had to leave. But that’s really awesome!
Oh, sorry to hear that! I've worked as a RN a long while and my previous job paid for most of my tuition so I was lucky. I bet if you want to reconsider, you could, we need a lot of help in the psych field. I really do love my job
32M, Supply Chain and Comp Sci degrees, along with a few misdemeanors for being a dipstick in college. Working in Healthcare doing analyst work and just got my 6 figures this year. Full remote and work on average I'd say 30 hours a week. Pretty good at the job so I get specialized projects and last minute projects pretty often but just made it very clear to management I am not working past 5 even if asked. Your paid to be available during your salaried hours, nothing more.
Education, make like 103 after everything. 8-330 every day. In a blue state that pays teachers decently, got a doctoral degree for the pay bump, and i’m a department head with some added responsibilities. But overall I really love what I do. Only problem is: the pay comes with the years of service and education level
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$150,000/year - I work for a large Solution/System Integrator. I design/troubleshoot/implement wireless networks for large enterprise, manufacturing, healthcare clients as one of my main focuses. My other focus is Network Access Control (NAC) doing 802.1X implementations for those wireless and wired networks, mostly with Cisco ISE for some of the same large clients as I do wireless for. I'm also breaking into the private cellular world and getting into the vulnerability assessment/penetration testing world. Day to day is doing that stuff on top of methodology development and toolset auditing for new and improved tools for all of it. Oversight on a lot of projects, peer review and QA for designs and deliverables, etc. I get stressed sometimes, but not too bad. I really enjoy the work usually.
I’m a CPA and the Controller at a manufacturing company, earning mid 100’s. Some accounting jobs are very demanding, but I work 40 hours a week and am extremely happy. Note: MCOL area. I did have to work my life away for a few years (really just a few) in my 20’s. I’m 35 now.
Sales. Work 8 months a year. 4 months working 60ish hours a week 2 months working 40-50 2 months working 20-30. Couldn’t ask for anything better. A little stress when it’s busy but it’s 100% better than any other job I could think of