r/financialindependence • u/fidgit86 • Aug 13 '21

What do you do that you earn six figures?

It seems like a lot of people make a lot of money and it seems like I’m missing out on something. So those of you that do, whats your occupation that pays so well?

15k Upvotes

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u/FatFiredProgrammer Aug 13 '21

Software development. We're all software developers here. True story.

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u/calmfitterhealthier Aug 13 '21

Not true. I’m in management .. of software developers.

My spouse is in finance.

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u/am_lady_can_confirm Aug 13 '21

Also curious if you were a dev at one point. I am at the moment and I like it but I don’t love it. Thinking of what to do next.

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u/chapia Aug 13 '21

An unsolicited opinion from an internet stranger...don't go into people management for the money (even if it does get you a raise!). Many amazing devs are "promoted" to people management because they are amazing devs and then absolutely suck at it (as rated by their ex-peers/now-reports and often honest self-evaluation). Many companies seem to ignore this recurring event and keep doing it. If you are not intrinsically motivated by, and excited about, helping others with their careers and translating business strategy into tactical execution via your team, you, again imo, are not likely to be happy with a management role (in tech, not sure about other industries).

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u/disinterested_a-hole Aug 13 '21

Amen. I got into tech for tech, not to remind Jason about setting appropriate goals. I've fought off all efforts to get me into mgmt.

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u/chapia Aug 13 '21

Good for you! Hold your ground if devving makes you happy! :-)

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u/FuckYourTheocracy Aug 13 '21

Yup, I was an interim manager for a year. "Hey guy with a smattering of social skills, go manage these other people who have 0 social skills"

I managed a team distributed in India and in NY. From the West coast. Worse year ever

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u/allybearound Aug 13 '21

Love those 3am slack messages, right?

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '21

[deleted]

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u/allybearound Aug 13 '21

*lady, but yes lol. I typically use a dnd after hours, but our overseas devs are so slow that if I miss messages from them, they just sit with their thumb up their ass until they get an answer.

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u/BarksAtIdiots Aug 13 '21

m, they just sit with their thumb up their ass until they get an answer.

And boy do devs fuckin love an excuse to thumb sit.

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u/r_lovelace Aug 13 '21

I've worked with my fair share of overseas devs and while this may be a bad assumption it certainly feels like they have 0 ability to grasp the bigger picture. They will follow step by step instructions without any straying at all but if at any point a small step is missing or the situation isn't exactly as described in instructions they end up stuck. This can be great if you need bodies to do menial shit that can be flow charted out but not at all helpful when you need someone to complete more ambiguous tasks or tasks that don't have some 10 page guide.

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u/derpotologist 29d ago

I wish people would turn their notifications off. Like yo I'm up at 3am I'm just sending this now so you can start working on it at 8am or whatever other ungodly hour you start work at. Cause by the time I wake up your day is half over

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u/allybearound 29d ago

I have to keep my notifications on for emergencies (no one pushes past DND on my team, even if everything is on fire). Slack lets you schedule messages now though, that’s pretty sweet.

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '21

Same here. Give me hard problems and leave me alone.

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u/hobbycollector 59 | 40% SR | 80% FI, 100 by 65 Aug 13 '21

This is the way.

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u/awhhh Aug 13 '21

Management isn’t that bad. Being a project manager just seems like babysitting Jira tickets and understanding petty politics. Product managers seem like deadbeats that convince idiot tech investors they know what they’re talking about by acting like Steve Jobs for reading Google analytics. I say that coming from marketing and going into fullstack dev.

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u/completefudd Aug 13 '21

People management is different than the type of management you listed

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u/awhhh Aug 13 '21

What the fuck is people management? There’s more?

I sound angry at you, but I’m not. I truly fucking hate tech

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u/DongRickles Aug 13 '21

Project manager should know the ins and outs of every project. The project manager at my work place is a fucking legend when it comes to knowing whats what with every project and when it comes to testing he will break the fuck out of my shit by finding bugs in obscure but real world scenarios which is annoying but a good thing overall since it is obviously better to get those things worked out before something launches. This guy is literally the backbone of the company and IMO should be paid more than anyone in the company including the CEO. I've said to my co-worker friends that the project manager could take a shit in the middle of the office and it would be suicide for the company to fire him.

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u/cam_beirne Aug 13 '21

A good PM is like a good SM, too bad there are so many bad SMs and so many even worse PMs.

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u/DongRickles 29d ago

I sometimes think I could do the PM job because (as a developer) I have an understanding of what kind of work would be needed for a project and the potential for various roadblocks, etc. then I remember that I’m terrible at organization, estimating time needed for a project despite doing dev work for almost a decade and am overall kind of sloppy when it comes to my work especially since work from home started and my ADD along with my recent obsession with the stock market ravages my productivity.

I then remember that I’d make a shit PM. Also I might be on the spectrum.

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u/awhhh Aug 13 '21

Our PMs don’t even know code

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u/derpotologist 29d ago

Saaaaame. Even switched jobs over it. Zero desire.

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u/BcILoveHer11 Aug 13 '21

As someone who got promoted into people management even after voicing I didn’t want it, this is 100% true. I HATED it. And worse, the pay was lower than I expected and even after asking twice for a higher salary, it never happened. Learned the hard way, ask before accepting.

Thankfully, another team poached me after not too long in the management role. It was a massive blessing. No amount of money would’ve kept me in people management much longer.

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u/homogenousmoss Aug 13 '21

I used to drink a couple of beers during lunch. It helped enormously to endure the tedium of building gigantic 6 months plans, developping contingecies, etc. Now its all good, I’m dead inside and I dont care anymore, just make sure you dont close all your fucking jira the last day of the sprint you little shit, gotta keep that velocity curve looking good for upper management.

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u/Careless_String77 Aug 13 '21

Counterpoint: I pushed back on being promoted (read: given a title) into people management unit it was pointed out to me that I was effectively already informally managing four teams just not getting paid to do so.

Not all heroes wear capes and not all managers know they are managing.

Getting the title just added some random light admin work and some pay. My job hardly changed: I still help people get shit done.

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u/ptypitti Aug 13 '21

Lol. Same here, i don't enjoy it much. Responsible for all the shit that goes wrong and also have to serve as a therapist. I get complains every day about who did this, who did not...i was much happier when i was just coding in my cube without talking to people. Buuuut, i do see that getting out of my comfort zone has made me discover or develop other skills such as negotiating and selling, had to read a bunch of books tho.

And i still don't have to talk to people all day, so that's a big plus. I consider anyone in the customer service industry a saint.

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u/rebeltrillionaire Aug 13 '21

Would you consider Product Managers people managers?

I feel like my relationship to Jason is telling him what needs to be built (in as much detail as I can, with pictures and stories), when to build it, and inform of any constraints.

I never manage the person, they are responsible for themselves. Only what they produce.

I imagine a lot of Devs that are good at the less technical aspect of their jobs would be happy to move into that kind of management.

Also I’m not sure how many of those other middle manager kind of even exist anymore. It’s like the secretary. Just a role that keeps getting split up or rolled up.

I feel like it’s kinda like the tech equivalent of a creative director.

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u/Deep-Arrival-217 Aug 13 '21

No, because most PMs manage a goddamn shitty PRODUCT, not goddamn shitty people. If you don't hire/fire, write reviews, deal with stupid bullshit that your idiot reports do, force your group of dimwits to take the next retarded corporate training on time, and adjust comp, then you're not a people manager.

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u/rebeltrillionaire Aug 13 '21

Aggro AF but understood. But it’s funny, I definitely could be assed to do that stuff too.

I mostly work with older folks who know the drill already and senior managers who don’t care about most HR things. Pay is essentially baked in and transparent. We hire people as a team.

Probably totally different in some place that’s run by 20s and 30 somethings. And there’s no formal process for anything (we have a process for everything)

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u/Deep-Arrival-217 Aug 13 '21

I never thought I could absolutely hate making 800k as much as I do.

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u/driftw00d Aug 13 '21

Until you take a lap in your Olympic-sized money pool, right?

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u/BcILoveHer11 Aug 13 '21

If I made 800k, I’d be miserable but would’ve sucked it up. This was a job for 1/10th that. Also in a company where people were directors over 2 people but my job over 15 wasn’t worth the extra 5k I asked for. Not worth it

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u/TheEveryman86 Aug 13 '21

When you're in Hollywood and you're a comedian, everybody wants you to do other things. All right, you're a stand-up comedian, can you write us a script? That's not fair. That's like if I worked hard to become a cook, and I'm a really good cook, they'd say, "OK, you're a cook. Can you farm?" -Mitch Hedberg

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u/am_lady_can_confirm Aug 13 '21

Absolutely great advice. More context I used to be a teacher and I currently manage junior devs and have a good relationship with my reports. I’m often asked to give presentations because of my past career and the communication skills that came with teaching, and I don’t mind that - I just keep thinking, damn if I’m gonna go around giving talks and presenting and I like it, why don’t I do it all the time and make way more money?? Am I wrong?

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u/chapia Aug 13 '21

Thanks!

Does "manage junior devs" include regular one on ones, performance reviews, salary adjustments, etc? Are you responsible for business outcomes? If not a yes to both, tech management is likely, depending on the company, to be a different experience for you. ymmv.

Since it seems you enjoy coaching, mentoring, presenting, and teaching, have you considered a role in corporate training or corporate course development? Some companies even have learning and developent departments, others want contractors to do all that.

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u/am_lady_can_confirm Aug 13 '21

I have not considered those paths, but they sound like something I find interesting. I had started looking into being an instructor for an online Ed company (there’s so many now) but I’ll have to do some googling re: these options. I just feel like I’m wasting my talents as I love talking and I’m really good at it lol

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u/This-Moment Aug 13 '21

The junior devs are the hard work. Most seniors are much lower maintenance.

If you're getting positive feedback, then it's a gift you have and could make a career of.

On which case two questions remain;

  1. Do you not hate doing it?
  2. Can you make the biggest piles of money doing it?

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u/am_lady_can_confirm Aug 13 '21
  1. I don’t hate it at all I just don’t really love it.
  2. That’s exactly my current goal. Squirrel away some serious cash and then who knows. I just think there’s other ways to spend my 9-5 time and make the same money I’m making now.

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u/a-ng Aug 13 '21

I feel like this is a problem in a lot of places that offer their employees managing others as the only advancement opportunities. Why not let super star developer be super star developer and help them advance their career as developer as opposed to manager? I think it’s shortsighted to think that just because someone is good at their technical jobs they will be good at managing others.

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u/Radmobile Aug 13 '21

My company is trying to create two paths to career advancement, management and individual contribution. It's hard because we're fairly small, so what does advancement even mean when your team is 10 people

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u/This-Moment Aug 13 '21

It means:

"You've done an excellent job on a critical role. Please don't go work somewhere else. Here's a meaningless title to make the rest of the business respect you... And also please accept this briefcase full of extra money."

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u/r_lovelace Aug 13 '21

This is literally alien to companies, especially older companies and smaller companies. People love to shit on start ups but one of the reasons everyone in tech wants to work there is because they will pay for talent in cash and equity and will create bullshit titles to give you another bump in pay and more RSUs. Why be stick as a Senior Dev for 20 years at Big Corp making 80k a year when you can be Principal Lead Architect after 5 years with Tech Startup and make 160k and pull in 100k+ RSUs every year.

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u/thcricketfan Aug 13 '21

Its a simplistic view imho. One of the ways of expanding your influence in tech is to get in management. In management one gets a chance to make decisions as opposed to getting direction from top which may be made by people who dont have the necessary technical skills. And then the devs have to live by that.

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u/someHumanMidwest Aug 13 '21

Classic Peter Principle.

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u/Strudelfick Aug 13 '21

A question, how does one get into people management in this field? I'm a business student who recently (re-)discovered his interest in programming and algorithms, still want to do something management-related though since I consider myself a people person.

So what's the plan, do I just try to get a software dev position (which sounds very appealing if I can self teach myself some skills in a relatively short amount of time) and move up from there? And do you have any other advice? Thanks

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u/r_lovelace Aug 13 '21

Everyone I know with a business degree is an assistant manager or manager of a retail or service store or is in some generic entry level office position that isn't technical. I've never heard of someone getting a business degree and sliding into technical positions as a self taught hobby and they certainly aren't going to be managing anything right out of college. Maybe someone else to who has seen this scenario can be more helpful but what you described is just not at all a realistic path in software. You're looking at a 5-10 years experience position while not even in the right program to grab the entry level job.

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u/Strudelfick Aug 13 '21

I know 2 people who got into programming without a degree, one of them just learned javascript for a couple months and makes pretty good money, the other one learned coding, algorithms and data structures for about a year and ended up getting a job at google (though it wasn't easy). I've been told that that path is a really smart one to take and it is very likely doable if I put the work in, which I can, and I'm naturally pretty good at this type of stuff.

Regarding the business degree, I live in Germany where I guess things are a bit different, the business degree here is the go-to degree for a lot of different stuff. Some people get stuck in a low end manager job but you also have investment bankers, strategy consultants at big firms and so on.

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u/r_lovelace Aug 13 '21

I can't comment on the German experience. All I will say is I would be absolutely shocked to see any programmer hired anywhere in the USA based on exclusively working with JavaScript "for a couple months" and even more shocked that Google hires someone without a degree to do anything technical when they have literally every graduate from top schools applying. Your portfolio of side projects would have to be insanely solid and you would probably need someone on the inside to even get a phone call about an interview.

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u/n8dev Aug 13 '21

I have a business degree and realized I loved software development too late to change majors. I said screw it and geared all of my internships around software and landed a web developer position as a result of one of them. My progression from there went software engineer > senior software engineer > software architect > director of product development at various companies. If I wanted, I probably could have jumped to a management route earlier if my interests were in that area. I was good at what I did and that opened a lot of doors. If I wasn’t, I probably could have gone scrum master after junior dev and used people skills to advance from there.

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u/I_reddit_drunked Aug 13 '21

It's true of other industries. I recruit a lot of sales people across tech and the better individual contributors will out earn their managers 2 or 3x. Even if the manager is on a exec bonus scheme he won't catch Johnny Doorkicker if he's smashing it. Friend of mine, early 50s sells a very specific type of tech and has only had a couple of year where he hasn't netted 800k+ out of the last 10.

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u/wise_guy_ Aug 13 '21

I don't know, I think its worth trying it out, you might like it, having it on your resume kicks you up a couple notches even if your next job is back to IC

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u/stroker919 Aug 13 '21

This is true.

I hate when they take super talented devs and make them management when it’s not a good fit.

You can tell because they qualify a lot of they say about the more operational aspects of things, but they are like a different person and will rip into a technical problem when it comes up and talk over the person actually working on it.

However if someone is very good, but mostly bitches about how things are done and nobody argues they should be managing things.

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u/small_trunks Aug 13 '21

Agreed - plus development eventually gets you a FAR longer career.

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u/ideletedmyfacebook Aug 13 '21

Second this, we had a manager role open up. We have one Dev who actually wants to go people manager route, over tech lead, and current management keeps skipping them.

Leading to some of the worst managers I’ve ever had. If a dev gets moved there, and doesn’t like it, it’s a complete shit show

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u/DongRickles Aug 13 '21 edited Aug 13 '21

Web dev here, my developer co-worker wanted to take on a management role and, well, let's just say that despite the fact he is a better developer than a manager I really hope he is making 6 figures. He reports to the director of our department and I'm pretty sure he is afraid of the director and the director knows it and takes advantage (at least from what I have seen). I think he could be a fine manager but just ended up wearing more hats than expected and he is spread too thin. All the reasons our lead developer (who has had his position for 20 years) has rejected all offers of moving into a management role.

I'm not saying he is a bad manager, actually pretty damn good from my perspective; he has been an awesome mentor and has gone to bat for me more than a handful of times. So, in that sense he has been a kick ass manager but I think he misses the dev work and I think his position has brought a lot of headaches and hassle. I hate to think of the possibility that he might only make slightly more than I do.

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u/DrunkMc Aug 13 '21

I totally agree! I am a software engineer and computers have been my passion since I was 5. I'm really good at my job and the only promotion left is management and sales. WTF? I don't mind managing programs and systems and I can deal with the people drama. But I would also have to "open your rolodex and cold call people for new programs". First off.....rolodex? Secondly, I'm an introverted engineer, I am not cold calling anyone or selling shit!! So at this point, I'm almost 40 and feel like I'm now stuck. Talking to friends, were all in the same spot across several companies.

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u/Accomplished-Bad3380 Aug 13 '21

I'm in people management because I enjoy people management. I just want to also be paid well for it. Is it typical for dev managers to have dev experience? Or, I should say, is it typical for dev managers to come from outside the industry?

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u/r_lovelace Aug 13 '21

Define outside the industry. If your company is in a highly specific industry you may get a non Dev manager that has industry specific experience. Aka a business super user who knows all of the legacy systems the company uses even if they don't know the code that runs them. Manager outside of the industry with no dev experience is going to be pretty rare. I'm not even sure what they would have to offer to the team aside from doing admin bullshit.

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u/Accomplished-Bad3380 29d ago

like outside of tech. I have a structural engineering degree and work construction.

Management needs to understand the job, but not necessarily be able to do the tech work, that's for the techs.

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u/r_lovelace 29d ago

For the most part management tends to have an IT background if they aren't specifically from a dev work stream. Its incredibly hard to set realistic timelines and manage workloads for a team if you don't have any idea what is actually required for a project.

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u/Accomplished-Bad3380 28d ago

Like everything, there would be a learning curve sure. I'm in construction management now, but I don't need to know how to be an electrician, or a welder or a plumber to do my job. Obviously you wouldn't come in knowing everything about everything, but what I do know about management is that you don't work in a vacuum, and you work with the team to develop the schedule and workloads.

I'm not saying I could do well in a different industry, but managing a team is more about getting everyone to work together under a common goal, and less about how much you know, technically. It's about setting measurable goals, solving problems and coordinating between departments.

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u/r_lovelace 28d ago

My experience as a dev and with devs is that there is 0 respect for a manager who can't get dirty with trouble shooting and writing code. If you can find a position where you're purely doing the admin bullshit no one cares about then sure but you'll be viewed more as HR than the head of the team. The Dev managers I've dealt with need to be able to walk into meetings and direct conversations with customers or other teams to identify project requirements. Part of that is knowing what a project will actually require to be complete so you can set expectations and timelines, know how the work needs to be divided efficiently and to be the devs voice of reason and be able to speak on why option A is had and going to take 6 months when option B is similar but can be done in 2. If you don't know the actual job you likely aren't going to be able to do any of that and so your team will view you as useless middle management and talk shit constantly behind your back.

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u/n8dev Aug 13 '21

I have never seen someone from outside the industry coming in and managing. Actually, I take that back. I’ve seen it in government. I was a contractor and there were non technical feds over us.I have not seen it in the private sector. I think you would get beat out 9 times out of 10 by someone with industry experience.

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u/Accomplished-Bad3380 29d ago

That's what I figured. I guess I need to try 11 times then, if I want to make the change ;)

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u/WhenTheDevilCome Aug 13 '21

I certainly agree with that, but for me personally it's always been "obvious" that's not what I want to do, too. I tell every incoming manager over me that I hate their job and am not trying to get their job or any job like it.

If you need to move up, perhaps try "product management" instead of people management. So that it remains more about software and features and how to solve client problems, rather than "people".

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u/t3hj4nk Aug 13 '21

Exactly this. Don't do it just for the money.

I moved from dev to leading a team of devs and I've loved every minute of it. You can see a difference between managers who have taken a promotion for the money vs who want to manage. I spend approx. 60% of my time managing my team and 40% of my time doing development.

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u/This-Moment Aug 13 '21

Yes. The only good reason to manage people is to keep someone else from doing a lousy job managing people. Otherwise, not worth it.

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u/Deep-Arrival-217 Aug 13 '21

Close, I would say most first-time managers from dev backgrounds step up to prevent themselves from being managed by some new idiot. I know that is what caused me to make the worst decision of my life.

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u/FatFiredProgrammer Aug 13 '21

Yeah, I've been in this situation. And, people have probably thought the same of me.

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u/rothIsBadHeSaidSo Aug 13 '21

As someone who got into people management for a short time, I put a pin in this one. Good advice. I've seen bad people managers from amazing technicians. Technical skill means shit when talking about getting Cindy and John to work efficiently while considering the possibility that they might be taking lunches together to have sex. Actually a situation a coworker asked me to help him with, he was in way over his head trying to find solutions.

To be clear the solution was that Cindy was also smoking pot at work (names changed) and she got fired. Not for the pot. I mean officially it was the pot. But unofficially I just don't like fraternizing or the concept of dealing with people trying to hide it after I confront them.