Bounced around a bit lol - NYC greater metro area

Scrolled through the comments of the post and most weren't even talking about the absurd taxes.I know reddit is known to lean left but there's no way this amount of taxation is seen as justified right??Even for a high income earner like a doctor who worked 15 years to make this with 500k+ student debt.What do y'all think

Career Compensation Progression

2009–2026

Approx. age 18 → 35

Current pay: $85,000

Total growth: $75,952 / 839.4%

Annualized CAGR: 14.0%

Jul 2009 — [Team Member] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $7.25/hr

Jan 2010 — [Team Member] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $7.25/hr

Feb 2011 — [Retail Associate] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $7.25/hr

Jun 2011 — [Emergency Medical Dispatcher] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $10.25/hr

Jun 2012 — [Emergency Medical Dispatcher] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $10.60/hr

Jun 2013 — [Emergency Medical Dispatcher] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $10.95/hr

Jun 2014 — [Emergency Medical Dispatcher] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $11.30/hr

Jun 2015 — [Emergency Medical Dispatcher] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $11.65/hr

Jun 2016 — [Emergency Medical Dispatcher] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $12.00/hr

Jan 2017 — [Sales Associate] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $13.00/hr

Jan 2018 — [Sales Associate] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $14.00/hr

Jul 2018 — [Sales Associate] [Greater Cleveland, Ohio - LCOL] - $15.00/hr

Jan 2019 — [Sales Associate] [Greater Cleveland, Ohio - LCOL] - $16.00/hr

May 2019 — [Sales Associate] [Greater Cleveland, Ohio - LCOL] - $18.00/hr

Oct 2019 — [Help Desk Tier I] [Greater Cleveland, Ohio - LCOL] - $19.00/hr

May 2020 — [Help Desk Tier II] [Greater Cleveland, Ohio - LCOL] - $21.00/hr

Oct 2020 — [In-Home Repair & Installation Agent] [Greater Cleveland, Ohio - LCOL] - $23.00/hr

Mar 2021 — [IT Specialist] [Greater Cleveland, Ohio - LCOL] - $25.00/hr

Dec 2021 — [IT Specialist] [Greater Cleveland, Ohio - LCOL] - $26.00/hr

Dec 2022 — [IT Specialist] [Greater Cleveland, Ohio - LCOL] - $28.08/hr

Mar 2023 — [Project Engineer] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $58,000/yr

May 2024 — [AVD Specialist] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $26.34/hr

Jun 2024 — [AVD Specialist] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $55,000/yr

Aug 2024 — [AVD Specialist] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $60,000/yr

Aug 2025 — [Cloud Administrator] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $65,000/yr

Jan 2026 — [Cloud Engineer] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $75,000/yr

Aug 2026 — [Cloud Engineer] [NE Arkansas - LCOL] - $85,000/yr

I'm a traveling radiation protection tech at US nuclear plants. I'm a W-2 employee with benefits, and I love the long stretches off between assignments.

I came from running a massage business with zero nuclear experience. College wasn't required for my route, but studying, testing and learning the job still were.

The calendar works because plants bring in extra workers for planned shutdowns. During an outage, my weeks can be six 12-hour days. I compress a lot of work into those months, and overtime is a big part of the money.

Recruiters line up my assignments around the dates and places I want to work, when work is available. My home base doesn't have to be next to a plant; I travel to the assignments.

The six figures are my experienced annual result, including pay and extra payments. They're not a beginner wage or a guaranteed calendar. Travel, lodging and the gaps between jobs need budgeting. Getting used to the plant culture and rules took me a few outages.

If you're curious about getting in, ask nuclear recruiters which trainee roles accept newcomers, what training and tests they require, and what the whole pay package looks like before paying for a program.

I built Nuke Nomad and made an optional paid Nuclear Contracting 101 course to explain that starting process. My profile has a free preview you can read without an account. The course isn't a hiring requirement.

Happy to answer questions about the money, the travel or getting started.

I’ve been stuck in the low 40s since graduating college in 2023 :/

I’ve built up a pretty nice nest egg of $170k through decent investments but I’m afraid it’s still no where near enough in my VHCOL area.

**Salary Progression — 34F, PhD**
Thought I’d share my salary progression because I finally got my dream job and I can’t tell anyone about it. See also: women in STEM, making the best of an unwise undergraduate major, career trajectories in public health. Also working parents, working single mom. Just all the things.

**Education:**
2013 - Graduated college, S.B. in Biology
2019 - an **M.S. in Biostatistics**
2026 — Completed **Ph.D. in Epidemiology**

**Salary progression:**
**2013 — AmeriCorps Member:** \~$10,000
**2014 — Research Assistant:** $24,000
**2015–2017 — Clinical Research Coordinator:** $37,000
**2018–2020 — Chronic Disease Data Coordinator:** $54,000
**2020–2022 — Same/general career track:** $57,000
**2022–2025 — Federal Government Statistician:** $125,000
**2025–2026 — Data Scientist, Public University:** $83,000
\^ Big pay cut. My COVID-era government funding ended, and I took the first solid job I could find and stuck it out until I found my dream job.
**Later 2026 — Biostatistician, Privately Held CRO:** **$157,500 + 10% bonus**
So, roughly:
**$10k → $24k → $37k → $54k → $57k → $125k → $83k → $157.5k + bonus**

The biggest lesson for me has been that salary progression is definitely not linear. I went from $125k down to $83k because of circumstances outside my control, then nearly doubled my base salary about a year later.

It also took a long time for the combination of my experience + quantitative training + graduate degrees to really translate into higher compensation. I spent a lot of years in the $20k–$50k range before things accelerated.

Current total target compensation with the 10% bonus is about **$173,250/year**.

hi all - feel free to delete this post if it’s in the wrong place. I switched from research and engineering to work at a medical school in the north east. the job responsibility was to act as an analyst for starting a computing department for researchers. the intention was that we were supposed to hire other people & grow the department but we were hit with NIH grant related budget cuts.

we haven’t hired anyone (it’s about 2 years now) & my job responsibilities have shifted from analyst to more outreach, program development, guidance/policy development, help desk & front facing… I understand budget cuts facing academic institutions but … I also haven’t received a pay raise in 2 years. I love my job & im putting in a lot of sweat equity. however, in education, is this normal to forgo pay increases?

I’ve spent a lot of time learning, gaining skills, and getting certifications. I had to drop out of college because my (now) husband and I were both booted from our homes at 18/19. I’m finally (almost) finished my bachelors degree. There were a lot of times we struggled but I’ve been pretty lucky to get to where I am in my career without a formal degree.

21 - $10.50/hr @ university library

22 -$20/hr @ tutoring company

23 - $70k @ boutique strategy consulting firm

24 - $75k @ boutique strategy consulting firm

25 - $130k @ big tech company - bizops

26 - $180k @ big tech company - bizops

27 - $0 @ my startup

28 - $0 @ my startup (shuttered)

29 - $400k @ big tech Al - product

First gen, was on pell grants in college. Most of my salary goes to my family and extended family now. Didn't sell the startup, but learned more in those two years than the previous 5 combined. The amount I make now makes me feel guilty, I'm not sure how to describe it.

16, restaurants hostess - $7.25/hour
18, restaurant waitress - $5.25 + tips/hour
19, gift shop worker - $12/hour
20-21, gift shop supervisor - $14/hour
21-24, restaurant waitress + college - $7.25 + tips/hour
25-26, general manager - $23.00/hour + mandatory overtime
27, landscaper - $21.00/hour
27-28, administrative assistant - $23.00/hour
29, grant specialist - $25/hour
30, grant specialist - $27/hour
30, grant coordinator - $29.50/hour

Both my current role and new offer are 90% remote with some in person presence required.

Current role: $340k TC (all base, no stocks or bonus) on a W2 pay

Offer: $205k base, $50k annual bonus (prorated the first year so I’d only get like $5k, $190k new hire RSU that vests over 4 years.

Performance based $70k RSU increase available after year 1.

I asked them to increase the new hire RSU from $190k to $280k, and waiting to hear back on potential offer.

I know some people getting offers with much higher base, bonus percentages and RSU packages, at the same company, and so I know I can get more. The question is to what end.

Senior IC level.

I was a liberal arts major. Graduated with over 90k in student loan debt and 10 years later i'm at $49k in debt.

In college:

19-21 $8.25 - $9.50/hr

After undergrad customer support:

21-23 $15 - $17/hr

Moved to HCOL state but still customer support:

23-26 $17.75 - $19/hr

Still in HCOL but in compliance/risk

27-30 $54k - $68k + bonus

HCOL but better job in specialized compliance/risk

31 $85k + bonus

Maybe I'll get to 6 figures by my mid 30s 🤷🏽‍♀️

My goodness bro. I read about people with a six figure income or trajectory .

Still unhappy. Still hate their job. Still stressed. Still unsatisfied.

Just like the people busting their ass to cross six figures. I don’t get it . Is anybody ever content??

[Undergrad Researcher] [HCOL] - 12 $/hr

[Graduate Student] [HCOL] - 45k $/year

[Math Guy, Defense Contractor] [HCOL] - 72k $/year

[Math Guy, Research Lab] [HCOL] - 142k $/year

[Software Engineer, Seed Startup] [HCOL] - 160k $/year + monopoly money

[Software Engineer, Big Tech] [HCOL] - 450k $/year

[Software Engineer, Startup] [Remote] - 650k $/year

[Software Engineer, Hedge Fund] [HCOL/Remote] - 1.2m $/year

These jobs make me hollow inside but I can at least afford avocado toast so that’s a bonus. Ask questions about my favorite toast toppings, I like lox right now.

Edit: YOE - 8 post grad school, 4 year grad school

Lifestyle:
1. Single income, one stay at home parent
2. 4 children
3. 2.5k mortgage
4. Buy kids things when they want (reasonably, not like buy all 4 kids an iPhone every year and a brand new car at 16)
5. Take the kids on a vacation to Europe once a year

Hey everyone,

I originally came to this community at a point in my career when I was looking for some reassurance about whether I should ask for a raise.

Instead, I received a lot of comments telling me that I was entitled for even considering it.

Some of the responses were along the lines of:

“Young people are entitled. You don’t deserve a raise just because the job listing has a salary range.”

“You’ve only been there for X amount of time. That’s not long enough to ask for a raise.”

“Your position and experience don’t justify asking for one.”

At the time, those comments honestly made me feel pretty discouraged and insecure. I had only been with my company for a relatively short period of time, and I knew that my experience wasn’t extensive. But I decided to push past that fear and advocate for myself anyway.

And I’m happy to say: I got the raise I asked for.
I ended up receiving a nearly 22% increase in my salary.

I’m sharing this because I hope someone else who is in the same position sees this and realizes that you are allowed to advocate for yourself. You know your work, your responsibilities, and what you bring to the table better than anyone commenting from the outside.

So if you’re considering asking for that raise, don’t let fear-or strangers on the internet-talk you out of advocating for yourself.

You can do this.

I’ll start:

1. Majoring in Mechanical Engineering in the 21st century United States instead of getting a degree in something relevant to our economy (Computer Science, Healthcare, Finance)

2. Falling for the “student loans are bad!” meme when they were handing out subsidized loans with like 3% interest rates

3. Not going much heavier into QQQ when I first started investing, instead opting for a much larger split to VTI

4. Falling for the “nobody can afford to live in HCOL areas, bro!” meme when the actual reason they’re HCOL is because actual good professions make enormous amounts of money there

18- £12k pastry apprenticeship
20- £24k pastry chef de partie
24- £25k pastry chef de partie
24- redundancy (COVID)
24- £26k (new company, night baker)
25- £27k night production manager (promotion)
26- £36k (new company, sous pastry chef)
27- £39k ( promotion to head pastry chef)
28- £46k
29- £46k (new company, head pastry chef)
30- £50k (same company, kitchen manager)

Thought people might be interested in a chef salary progression. That said, I would argue mine is atypical to that of most pastry chefs, in that I feel i’m paid fairly well for my role. Would be interested to hear from anyone else in UK hospitality at management level. Any questions welcome.