r/financialindependence • u/fidgit86 • 9d ago

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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412

u/CaveGiant 9d ago

And how many hours do you work. That's key.

217

u/wntrsux 9d ago

And how many years of experience you have.

10

u/childlikeempress16 9d ago

Lobbyist; 7 years; 45 hours some weeks and 25 others

5

u/chjako1115 9d ago

How does one become a lobbyist? What is your day to day like?

2

u/[deleted] 8d ago

Not original commenter but 90% of lobbyists either have law degrees or were previously employed on The Hill in some capacity. Some were even former politicians. Its not a good job. Trust me.

2

u/PerfectLogic 7d ago

If I could make one job disappear from the universe it would be lobbyists. I know there are good reasons to have them legitimately, but they've been turned into tools for corruption pretty consistently.

12

u/jeremyosborne81 9d ago

Who is your daddy and what does he do?

2

u/wntrsux 9d ago

yeah 😐

1

u/erindipitous 9d ago

Maybe it’s a tumor?

3

u/Blueberry-411 9d ago

This. Someone said it took 15 years of work to get to 6 figures but it was worth it. I'm in IT but in another country so I don't know how to quality this 6 figures thing in my country, but I started with barely over minimum wage also 15 years ago.

5

u/CaptainCosmodrome 9d ago

Software dev living in the midwest (location matters on salary): my salary took only ~5 years to reach 100k after college. I focused on Microsoft technology, which is very popular here. If I had gone into java/php/c++, I'm not sure if it would have spiked that fast. For the last 20 years, my skillset has always been in high demand here.

2

u/_Takub_ 9d ago

Average 40-45 hours a week with 4.5 years experience. Live in AZ, so pretty average for COL.

Clear around 110 when it’s all said and done.

3

u/greenbubblesupside 9d ago

2 years exp, 5-7 hours per day, 145k

Edit: also, entirely remote. Stay home 24/7

9

u/bodhasattva 9d ago

what job is this?

17

u/MouaTV 9d ago

Gotta be software development lol

5

u/YogurtSocks 9d ago

What do you do?

2

u/Dayv1d 9d ago

i call bs

7

u/raytsou 9d ago

Not bs. I'm from a top engineering school and everyone I know doing software engineering is making around the 150k mark straight out of college and spends most of their day browsing reddit.

-1

u/Dayv1d 8d ago

no they do not, lol. am senior SE.

1

u/DinoTraps420 8d ago

Idk what to tell you homie, Facebook (for example) has a 180k average total comp for entry level roles. https://www.levels.fyi/company/Facebook/salaries/Software-Engineer/E3/

Even less prestigious roles/backgrounds have high pay in software. I’m hitting 270k with 6 years experience at a non-FAANG

1

u/RunningSouthOnLSD 9d ago

You guys hiring?

3

u/jeevesdgk 9d ago

I work 40 hours a week but get average 45k a month. (Licensed loan officer in 6 states). I have 4 months of experience, 2 of which were training and taking the SAFE exam. There are some guys at my company making 100-150k every month consistently though. The sky is kind of the limit.

1

u/baker09baker 9d ago

So how do you get into this lol

1

u/geekyeddieg 9d ago

What states?

2

u/jeevesdgk 9d ago

California, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Oregon, Virginia

2

u/BillerBillions 9d ago

And location

5

u/hereforthefire 9d ago

And street you grew up on

1

u/mathdrug 8d ago

And your mother’s maiden name.

1

u/FoxFourTwo 9d ago

6 in the industry, 3 in the current skillset

1

u/[deleted] 9d ago

Software; 15 years; maybe, MAYBE 40 hours a week if I’m stuck on something

1

u/Worried_Cod7754 9d ago

Enterprise experience in IT about 7 years.

But I knew how to mess with computers for almost 20 years since I was a kid.

alot is OTJ outside of desktop support. I threw myself out there and got to work in Systems Administration, Networking, low voltage, Security, and more.

All that was ever said to me is "who wants to....?" and I volunteered. I have made many professional contacts and my last 3 jobs were referred by friends of mine that I had performed consulting jobs for.

1

u/FishWithAppendages 9d ago

And also who do you know

1

u/DivineLawnmower 8d ago

How many are you expecting? I feel like this is just as relavent a thought. Salary is so dependant on country/state it's almost unreal to ask this outside of the US. Live in the UK for example on 100k and you're a prince unless you want to live it up in London.

Single income, home ownership with mortgage, 2/3 bedroom house is affordable at ~30k outside London, nevermind 60k/100k.

11

u/Kaiisim 9d ago

Yeah lots of jobs you make 6 figures, but can never get any time to enjoy it.

2

u/bodak_red 9d ago

That’s why you slave away and then live free

3

u/TyronSlothrop 9d ago

This is the most important factor, I made low 6 figures working in a gold mine but I worked 12-16 hours a day 6 days a week. I'm enjoying the money I made now but the years between 19 and 28 (aka my prime) were a fucking black hole.

-1

u/PM_ME_ONE_EYED_CATS 9d ago

I make 6 figures and work 12-16 hours a week.. technically

11

u/tilefloorhomegym 9d ago

no, the biggest key is where you live.

a 100k job in San Francisco? some what common.

In Paris? That's a bit rare!

In rural Cambodia? you are the #1 drug kingpin around

3

u/CaveGiant 9d ago

I don't care where you live if you're working 60 hours a weeks.

2

u/sausageandcheesecart 9d ago

Like the accounts making over 100k but working 60-70 hour weeks bent over a desk… fuck that.

I’ll take my 85k and 38 hour weeks with weekends off, thanks.

6

u/PlentyPirate 9d ago

Bingo! I always say the true measure of income is the value per hour rather than the actual salary. Work life balance is important.

5

u/BoneGram 9d ago

250k, 32 hours a week, 5 years experience, and live in an average cost of living city. 100% remote work. Remote consulting in the field of distributed computing is pretty fucking awesome.

2

u/nerga 9d ago

What's your area. Kubernetes and cloud I assume? Or a more general distributed computing consultant. Faang / Linkedin or something like that under your belt for the name power?

2

u/BoneGram 9d ago

Kubernetes and cloud in support of the data layer. Cassandra mostly but branching out into other things recently. I work for a consulting firm instead of consulting on my own so just an employee and don’t have to drum up my own work

1

u/nerga 9d ago

That would do it. Smaller consulting firm I assume? Thanks for answering.

1

u/BoneGram 9d ago

Yup. Over a hundred but not over a thousand. Maybe that’s a medium sized firm? Guess it depends on your perspective.

1

u/dzntz4u 9d ago

Please sir do share more

3

u/nerga 9d ago

My guess is he's kubernetes consultant.

2

u/BoneGram 9d ago

What else would you like to know? I don’t like to give away too many personal details on this account, but I’m happy to share what I can. I use a lot of Kubernetes and have to be pretty familiar with AWS, Azure, and GCP. We use these tools to support distributed SQL and NoSQL databases for fortune 500 companies. A lot of my work is helping companies architect a data layer that can support 50-100k transactions per second as well as advising their application teams on how to capitalize on the advantages of that architecture. IMO the real money in this industry is sales, but next in line is consulting where you have to have the technical chops but also have the business acumen to to express complex ideas to people who may or may not be as technically proficient as you are. Hope that helps!

1

u/dzntz4u 8d ago

I see so it would be best to be versed in the industry a bit more. How did you get into or transition into this field?

2

u/BoneGram 8d ago

I was incredibly lucky and I always try to impress upon people that my story is an extreme example of survivor bias. I worked hard, but was also VERY lucky to be in the right place at the right time on a couple of occasions. 6 years ago I was working in retail. I started teaching myself the basics of front end web development and ended up taking a 60% pay cut to go work at a paid IT apprenticeship program. From there I landed in front end consulting for a bit and got involved with cloud service providers to deploy my websites. With that knowledge, I decided to pursue my AWS associate level certifications. Working through meet up groups around cloud, I started to hear about Cassandra and what it was capable of, so I started to teach myself that. I then was able to interview and obtain a very junior level Cassandra consulting gig and build up my knowledge base over the next three years. The only advice I can give is to spend what time you can afford to spend learning as much as you can. There are tons of free resources out there and once you learn the basics do everything you can to actually build something. I think the practical implementations are often overlooked for additional theoretical knowledge and should be significantly more important for growing your skill set.

2

u/mypornalt_ 9d ago

I'm just reading through these comments thinking nope, nope, nope, not that. Money is pretty meaningless when you work more than 70 hours a week every week. Just gotta hope that early retirement comes before the heart attack. There's no kids around to visit or give you grandkids because you didn't have time. Your first and second wives left you because you worked too much. I used to work with lots of high powered rich people and their lives are a fucking mess.

2

u/FoxFourTwo 9d ago

9-5 baybeee

1

u/pM-me_your_Triggers 9d ago

I prefer 7-3

2

u/oinkdynasty 9d ago

Yeah pretty much. I’m a registered nurse and earned 6 figures last year. I worked crazy hours and got hazard pay for working covid units. Im not gonna earn as much this year.

2

u/grobblebar 9d ago

All of them.

2

u/JSArrakis 9d ago

Technical Program Manager for a development team

I barely 'work', just mostly make decisions based on analysis. But bigger picture comes pretty easy to me

2

u/Commercial-Ad1839 9d ago

Yeah really tired of reading through these hourly folks claiming to make 100k. No, you make 50k you just put in 2 years worth of work in one year.

Not dissing anyone just realize your worth. I used to bust my ass putting in 80 hour weeks. For nothing, slow down. Live your life.

1

u/CaptainCosmodrome 9d ago

Software dev/cloud engineer: Depends on the job, honestly.

Currently working for a small company that uses EOS management style, which essentially hard caps employees to 40 hours unless we fall behind on goals (we set our goals quarterly).

When I was a consultant, I rarely went over 40 hours but earned anywhere from straight rate to double rate depending on the contract.

One job for a startup was 50-60 hours per week with no overtime pay. The entire company was 12 people. They burned me out after only a few years.

My first job out of college for a large market research company was 42-45 hours but they always wanted to squeeze more out of their employees. If you weren't doing 45+, then you actually got bad marks on your yearly review.

1

u/whosname1986 9d ago

Less than 40.

1

u/Cat_eater1 9d ago

Some of these jobs sound like they put in hella hours which makes sense. But I do know some people who make 100k plus that have cushy jobs. If you want to break into 100k while working 4 days a week I recommend Marketing as a major or mechanical engineer and not taking the first job the military gives you.

1

u/onemoretimepls 9d ago

Like 5-10 min a day, selling theta / vega on options .. if things go really well can do like 100k a month but usually like 20-50k a month on 500k capital

1

u/killeryo8 9d ago

36 hour work week. Monday to Thursday.

1

u/Ineedavodka2019 9d ago

25-30 a week. 17.

1

u/aweiher98 9d ago

40-45 hours a week as a manager of a construction materials testing laboratory. Although I barely hit 6 figures

1

u/ChemE2023 4d ago

No joke…I did chemical engineering to get on this path, oil & gas. We work 70 hrs a week for $80k salad (no OT), often longer hours. Reading this thread carefully!

0

u/Xidium426 9d ago

Nope. As I write this I've probably put in 25 hours of work this week. Going to lunch then home.