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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2k

u/FatFiredProgrammer Aug 13 '21

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

1k

u/calmfitterhealthier Aug 13 '21

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

My spouse is in finance.

29

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.

152

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).

71

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.

12

u/chapia Aug 13 '21

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

6

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

5

u/allybearound Aug 13 '21

Love those 3am slack messages, right?

5

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.

6

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.

3

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

1

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.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '21

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

2

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

This is the way.

5

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

-4

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

5

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.

3

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.

1

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.

1

u/awhhh Aug 13 '21

Our PMs don’t even know code

1

u/derpotologist 29d ago

Saaaaame. Even switched jobs over it. Zero desire.