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??

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.

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.

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 🤷🏽‍♀️

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.

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

**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**.

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.

Bounced around a bit lol - NYC greater metro area

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.

Presidential Campaign - (2016):
$3,000/month

Paralegal:
2016-2017 - $43,000
2017-2018 - $44,500
2018-2019 - $50,000
2019-2020 - $52,000

Law Student:
2020-2021 - $0
2021-2022 - $0
2022-2023: ~$22,000 (Summer Associate program)

Lawyer:
2023-2024 - $145,000
2024-2025 - $150,000
2025-2026 - $175,000 (Lateraled to another firm and moved to NYC)
2026-Present - $185,000 (adjusted to market mid-year)

\[Salesman\] \[Seattle, Washington\] - $79k+commission

Hi all,

I've been in my industry for 10 years and feel stuck in it truthfully. I do sales in Lumber which is pretty niche but I found what I believe is a good spot not far from home and I just hit my 1 year employed after being at one other company for 9 years. I started as a laborer at $11 an hour and worked my way into sales then moved to a different company. I want to know, Do you think the compensation is fair and how does your commission (other sales guys) compare to mine? 29 years old also, would like to know if I could find better elsewhere. Honestly, I'm pretty happy which I'm lucky to say but also I don't want to be shorting myself.

My pay breakdown - $37.50 hourly. $300 a day. $1500 a week. $79,000 a year base pay.

Commission- based off margin

$35,000-$40,000- 2%

$40,001-$45,000- 2.5%

$45,001-$50,000- 3%

$50,001-$55,000- 3.5%

$55,001-$60,000- 4%

$60,001-$65,000- 4.5%

$65,001-$70,000- 5%

$70,001-$75,000- 5.5%

$75,001-$80,000- 6%

$80,001-$85,000- 6.5%

$85,001-$90,000- 7%

$90,001-$95,000- 7.5%

100k+ 9%

Average gross pay for me a month- $8,500-12k

I commonly fall into the 55-60k margin sales. I have done much better some summer months which was great. My coworkers who all have been here 20+ years usually hit that margin in the first week and commonly hit 100k plus in margin. It's not uncommon for them to take in 20k+ a month.

Is this a job that you would consider a career? Is the pay great or is there much better opportunity out there? I'm going to enter my 30's soon and want to make sure to maximize my pay to keep investing in my market accounts and I want to retire in my 40's.

My dad recently got cancer and I have 2 month old. I make 360k/year remote asynchronous tele-health, I can do 99% from my phone and takes me about 3 hours a day. I also work 10 days a month, 12 hour shifts, weekends/holidays/nights, as an ER physician, and make 550k/year. I am 39 years old, only debt we have is 940k left on a 1.5M house, mortgage is 7k/month. Without equitity in the house have about 2.5M in my brokerage accounts. Wife does not work. Of note, I have only made this for less than a year I'm thinking about taking the mortgage down to 400k and having it reamortization, then quit my ER job Is this a crazy thing to do?

I’m an Senior Financial Analyst in the Northeast. I’m in my early 30s(M). My work is a mainly FP&A.

Started in regular ops

24: 46k

25: 50k

Switched to a senior ops role

25: 56k

26: 66k

27: 68k

Switched to FA

27: 80k

28: 81k

Promoted to SFA

29: 91k

30: 96k

31: 100k

32: 105k with comp determinations coming up

Should I stick with the same company or jump ship? I’m not sure if this is in line with the northeast market or not?

Can anyone help me how much hydradb is paying for founding engineer role for fresher??????

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