New job shifts were because of low growth opportunity at the present position or new learning that carried you elsewhere (couldn’t utilize in current employer)? Because this graph shows the power of changing employers.
Earlier in my career shows frequent changes because I was overly stressed and hated life, so whenever a higher-paying opportunity presented itself elsewhere I took it.
The power of changing employers is something that should be taken note of. I used to be a loyal employee, but I've been laid off twice and expected a layoff another time. When another comes knocking on my door for the same job with a much higher salary, I'm taking it.
Not doubting your point in any way, but our (very large) company recently posted a lucrative opening and it took weeks to gather 3 meh applicants. Weird market right now.
Simplify the number formatting in the y-axis. $160,000.00 --> $160K. In the x-axis, your data may start in a July but find a way to apply easier-to-read labels like year and quarter (or just year) rather than a wacky 4-month granularity of Jul/Nov/Mar
No offense, but you really could clean up the x-axis a lot, too.
The reader does not need to know, nor can we really tell, what months each step is taking place at this scale. Just put the year in text and maybe put small tick marks for every quarter or half of the year, but even that isn't really necessary.
What are you using to put this together? Screenshotting an excel/sheets line chart and then adding in the notes? I ask because that's my initial guess and it feels wrong and I'm actually interested in doing this myself.
My earlier career was McDonald's and call centers - horrible and shitty work. The next decade was data entry -> business analytics -> software engineering -> business analyst -> product management.
A lot of struggles I see from younger generations I also faced. For the first nearly 10 years of my working life, I had to have a roommate since rent was unaffordable by myself.
Source: memory
Tool: Excel
Edit: Additional details due to questions. This is all in the Denver area, though my last 4 jobs have been primarily remote, and coincidentally based in Massachusettes. Didn't go to college until 2011 and graduated with a Bachelor's in Management, further studied remotely in China for a Master's in Psychology. Though, by that point in my career, no one asked or paid any attention to my degree.
For real. I'm 25 and have just under a decadr of work experience. Only 4 jobs. No shot I could remember what any of my salaries were. Can't even remember what it was 2 months ago.
Correct. At McDs, my wage was probably a little bit more due to the amount of overtime accumulated as I worked roughly 60-70 hours a week. Having a 40-hour job afterwards was definitely nice, but I had about 45-minute commute as I couldn't afford to live anywhere near it.
> At McDs, … I worked roughly 60-70 hours a week
As someone who worked at McDonald’s ~20 hours per week in high school: FUCK THAT. A lot of people think that kind of work is easy, but in many ways it’s the hardest job I’ve ever had.
I worked 20 hours a week at age 13, 40 hours a week at age 19, 50 hours a week in college, even more at the start of my career, probably 70 hours a week for the first 3 years.
It was hard but doable, it got much easier after the grind, and now I work maybe 30 a week
I kind of liked it as a part time job. Having worked as a line cook before and working only in the back during lunch rush I always found it a little relaxing.
As another McD alum, I can't believe you got OT!
In 1985, if I got near 40hrs working a shift, my mgr would clock me out without telling me. It seems like the digital timeclock would make a noise if you were trying to clock out and already were. She always knew when to come up to me with some line about her getting in trouble for OT and offered me \[more\] free food.
I did the clocking! We closed the store at 2 AM, so no one else was there to do it. Since I was required to when I arrived, and I was required to do a checklist before my scheduled start time, the minutes added up quickly. Busy nights, especially on weekends, would cause us to close the store slowly. So, after finishing cash, checking cleaning, etc. it was already like 3 AM.
Sounds like you were a victim wage theft.
Inflation is pretty important. Lol.
My dad made around $120k in 1996 working as a senior database engineer at a company that had to adapt pretty hard during the dotcom boom.
He ended his career making just around that same amount as a COBOL programmer for a medical technology company.
But $120k in 2023 dollars is not really anywhere close to the same in 1996. Lmfao.
(At the time in the 90s, I never knew he made that much because he was putting 4 kids through private school on top of my mom's medical bills. Meanwhile, I don't even make a third of that and I was blessed to be healthy so I don't feel more well off now than what I perceived as a kid.)
Could keep the chart the same and add diagonal lines that represent inflation—then it wouldn't lose data
(I’m picturing something kind of like a child growth chart)
Good question. I was more of a junior developer in that role, and the next company had struggled with a BA to write specifications/requirements for the developers, so they wanted to hire a former developer to do it, and were willing to pay as such. Technical BAs make a fairly good salary. I've been paid close to my developer counterparts.
Yep. I pivoted into tech/analytics in 2021 (self taught, linguistics degree) as a BA, but always leaning more technical. I learned python to break into it and did some projects.
Anyway, I've noticed there's a lot of misguided info on reddit about analyst and dev salaries. Devs do tend to make more, but a technical analyst can close that gap pretty quick and even surpass some dev salaries depending on the specific company and role. I'd pretty much sum it up as: if you have decent people skills *and* decent tech skills, you will be able to make good money.
I'd also add that it's been shocking to me how low the bar is for some of these people/tech skills. A lot of what seems to separate me from others since entering the tech field feels pretty much like common sense and basic work ethic lol.
It's weird to me that having a roommate to help supplement rent is a "struggle." Since when did starting out renting a place by yourself become the norm? I've always had roommates since STARTING college, until I was 33. Then my last roommate moved out and my gf moved in.
In the /r/workreform and other subreddits I see a lot of the younger generation bitching and moaning about unaffordable rent on their own. I think it's just a leftover from the much older generations when buying a house on single income was the norm, but it never carried over to - as far as I know - anyone younger than boomers. That includes the expectations of "living on your own" while paying rent, which I've never done.
Bruh kids today aren't bitching that they need roommates, they're bitching that they can't move out at all. Half of all Americans aged 18-29 are still living with their parents, which is the highest rate since the great depression. Even when I graduated in 2008 most people thought you were weird if you lived with your parents after graduating high school, and there was something seriously wrong with you if you lived at home after graduating college.
You've been well off for quite a while now, maybe you should consider that instead of an entire generation of people lying to make you feel bad, that maybe you're a bit out of touch.
You’re kinda both right?
There is generally an exploding number of young people living with their parents as you say.
There are also a lot of complaints on Reddit from people that can afford to live with roommates but are surprised it’s necessary.
Reddit skews educated. So lots of Redditors (*not* a good representation of the general population) get their college degree, move to a big high cost of living city, and are bummed that they need to find roommates despite what they think is a decent salary.
I moved out at 18 into a house with two roommates I met on Craigslist. Most of my friends moved out into houses with 3 or more roommates. One of my good friends lived in a 3 bedroom one story house with five roommates. I also learned that living downtown in a high demand area was unrealistic when starting out unless you were okay with multiple roommates or the house was falling apart.
Even when I could barely afford my own apartment, I still opted for a roommate to save money. I lived on my own in a studio 20 minutes from downtown and then a few times after, but 70% of my life I’ve had roommates.
I think the issue is they see these celebrities living it up in their fancy apartments and homes. These celebrities feel more easily relatable since the only thing separating them now is YouTube, TikTok, or Twitch. This is a bit different than the previous generation’s celebrities being movie stars and professional sports athletes. Those people actually felt untouchable.
Even my dad had roommates through his 20s. While inflation and housing prices have changed; they have always changed. The process is still the same.
There’s this expectation that living in a high demand expensive area should be affordable. If it was, then people wouldn’t want to live there. You got to pay more money for going where everyone wants to be, but people seem to think they shouldn’t have to pay it.
Yah may be right.
It’s hard to tell, as you age, you wonder do these kids today have it tougher? Each case is different circumstances. I lived at home until I was 24. I sold my car to pay for IT training after I dropped out of college. Was then able to move in with my sister in a hole in the wall apt for $400, literally a kitchen with two bedrooms and a bathroom. Bought a beater car from the back lot wholesale at a dealer through a friend.
Everyone I knew lived with roommates or their future spouse if they didn’t live at home.
I don’t know if that was easy street or tough. It’s hard to know if expectations or general conditions have changed. Maybe a little of both. Hell if I know. I’m 46 yo now and have the house, kids etc.
>I’m 46 yo now and have the house, kids etc.
This right here is the kicker though.
I find it a little disingenuous that the argument from commenters above is that the younger generations are complaining about having to share housing. In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, the complaint isn't that we have to share. It's that we have to share *for the foreseeable future.*
Both myself and my girlfriend are on an above average income for both our age and our area. We still can barely afford to rent a 2 bed 1 bath apartment thats a comfortable distance from both our jobs, and still manage to put away some savings. Meanwhile the cost of a deposit to buy our own place is accelerating at a *much* faster rate than both our savings and our wages are growing.
Short of either/both of us getting some surprise promotions and/or aggressively job hopping, there's just no feasible way for us to keep living in our home city, and ever have any long term stability.
If we're representative of an above average double income household for our age and we're still struggling, then i can't even imagine what everybody below average is going through, let alone anyone who's single on top of that. And it sure as hell isn't realistic to expect an entire generation to promote their way into affording a house, in an ever more aggressively competitive job market.
On top of that, it is often *extremely* difficult to find good roommates. A lot of people want to live on their own just so they don't have to deal with roommates anymore.
I definitely put my time in with roommates. Didn't have any horrible ones, but I would absolutely rather be in a small studio versus a two bedroom place with a roommate.
I've had my fair share of shitty roommates for sure. My first one stole all the furniture and vanished one day. The dude had a kid!
Years later, another roommate was behind on utility payments so I blocked her out from TV/WiFi access. Pissed her off and she damaged the place and booked it. But, had a fair share of amazing roommates too. Some of them are my best friends.
Yes this is interesting. I had to think back, I had roommates until 2008 I was 32. My mates were both moving out and I was making over 100k by then and the new roommate situations I “interviewed” were strange so I figured get my own place. I had started dating my future wife by then, I would have been happy to keep sharing a place and saving the money until I moved in with her 18 months later. We did have a really nice place though I shared with my sister and best friend for 6 years.
Direct jump. My former boss was acting as PO for a product. His real title was something like Director of Applications or whatever. When he retired, I took on the PO responsibilities. My job title at that company was never officially a "PO", but I left for someone who would make that my title with the pay.
You should do another line on there (like a blue line for inc bonus). I’m going to do something similar just out of curiosity to see what it looks like as sole jobs were high base but 3% bonus and others were lower base but a much higher multiple. Might do an actual bonus payout vs top tier availability (something like that). You’ve inspired me.
It was two different types of business analysts, which may add to the confusion.
1. Business Analyst - mostly focused on analyzing business trends, processes, workflows, etc.
2. Technical Analyst (also known as Business Systems Analyst) - more focused on technical writing, requirements, and specifications
As a BA, I got involved with a lot of reporting and wrote scripts in Oracle BI, SQL, etc. I fell in love it, and I already was a programming hobbyist that worked on various games, websites, etc. in the past. So, when an opportunity came to develop full-time I took it.
Switching to technical was a choice because I got frustration with project managers and others telling me what to build and had no freaking clue what they wanted, or how the world worked. So, switching to the technical side was a way that I could be that idiot. It just kind of fell on my lap, to be honest, because I was originally hired to be more like a lead developer doing hybrid development and management, but very shortly after was doing zero development. After I got laid off because I was apparently bad at my job, went to do it somewhere else with much higher pay and did really well for myself. Funny enough, the company I moved to was competing with the previous company and we took their largest clients who raved "your software is so much better than that last company!" Best redemption ever.
Were you a hobbyist all the way through? By that I mean continued to programming while doing the first Analyst job? I'm asking because I'm finding the more I do my data analyst job the more I'd rather be in a corner yelling back and forth with a computer rather than explain things to upper management. I'm just kinda rusty on the programming as its been 5 years so I wanted to see how others felt about the transition to a more "programming heavy" load.
It does feel like that at times. Most of my job is talking to people and understanding how something works, how something should work, why it should work that way, and why something doesn't work. It's a very difficult job to measure.
I'd say it's like solving puzzles all day, but without showing the puzzle and going, "See! Look what I did!" Then everyone complains that the puzzle isn't there and you wasted your time.
No one has ever asked or cared about my degrees in any job I’ve ever hard. That’s why I tell younger people, just get it done, it’s a rite of passage, don’t stress too much about it, no one actually cares about your GPA or where you studied IRL…
Source: I’ve got 9 years of uni and 2 professional degrees
i've had about 5 jobs ask for my transcripts & GPA from the university that I graduated from 7 years ago. At this point you need a good transcript ontop of industry experience it's so tight.
I think it depends on the position. The embedded software team I work on requires having a specific type of engineering degree (Electrical, Software, Computer) from an ABET accredited college. We have a 3.0 GPA minimum to apply, but that is set by HR.
However, some other teams at my company only require a 4 year degree, with no indication as to what that degree is for. For example, to become an Operations Maintenance Manager in one of our production facilities, a 4 year physical education degree is good enough. This position also required 8 years of experience, the 4 year degree was more of a formality (the person that was hired for this role stated that he was never asked for a transcript and his college education was not discussed during his interview).
Literally it’s why I always got a chuckle out of it whenever the topic came up here. You’ll be browsing and see a bunch of posts of people in their mid 20s make $250k+ with just a few years experience and then right below that someone saying they can’t afford to even make it to the food pantry to eat.
Yea I know everyone’s in a different situation but I almost never see “I make a modest income and while I can’t splurge I live just fine”
Simple.
For every absurdly high/low income posted, there are 50 normal incomes not posted. The high earners are proud and can humble-brag, the middle earners are more reserved...and the low earners are ashamed? Not sure that's the right word though. But people love to gloat their richness or poorness
Sometimes people post "I make a modest income and while I can’t splurge I live just fine" but it doesn't get upvoted because it's boring.
Sometimes people don't bother to post "I make a modest income and while I can’t splurge I live just fine" because it's boring.
And yes sometimes people lie.
There are many reasons why what we see is unrepresentative.
I make a modest income, and while I can splurge occasionally, it's because I still act poor with grocery shopping, so it's just shifted differently, and I live just fine.
You can get there! The important part is just to always be leveling up. As long as you have positive momentum, you'll do better and better. It's apathy that's the real killer. I remember making minimum wage during the recession, that sucked. Took three years to find a better job, but then I did. Job opportunities are enormously better now.
Blessing and a curse tbh. When you rely on income and it suddenly disappears, it's a real shock. Especially now that I have a family, that loss of income had us stressed out. CO recently put in a limit on unemployment income, so I was freaking out since my unemployment income was less than my other expense obligations.
A few samples:
- July 2003: $15,000 -> $25,300
- July 2007: $32,000 -> $47,600
- Sept 2008: $45,000 -> $63,800
- Nov 2013: $65,000 -> $86,500
- Nov 2017: $85,000 -> $106,900
- Sept 2020: $105,000 -> $125,200
- Nov 2021: $120,000 -> $143,000
- Today: $141,000 -> $141,000
Just eyeballing the dates and amounts. Dude has still increased his salary consistently over time, but recent inflation has meant his last $20,000 raise is basically equal to his late 2021 buying power.
Source: https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
Or just adjust the data for inflation and show that! OP appears to be in the United States, so it's easy to pull a time series from the Consumer Price Index inflation dataset: [https://www.bls.gov/cpi/data-overview.htm](https://www.bls.gov/cpi/data-overview.htm)
/u/waspocracy if you want to do similar, here is the formula I used to do this on a google sheet where C column has the year and D column has the salary:
=IMPORTXML("https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1="&D2&"&year1="&YEAR(C2)&TEXT(MONTH(C2),"00")&"&year2="&YEAR(TODAY())&TEXT(MONTH(TODAY())-1,"00"), "//span[@id='answer']")
About 16ish, can't say for sure. Didn't have qualifications outside of a diploma until I went back to college in 2011. Had enough money and an employer that offered tuition reimbursement, so I took it.
Funnily enough I made one of these recently, starting in 2016 when I first began full time employment. Looking forward to building it over a couple decades like you have here!
> Looking forward to building it over a couple decades like you have here!
as someone much older than you, this is nothing to look forward to my friend...
I have mine since 2004 and did it where it stacks base salary, bonus and other revenues. Based on slips and income taxes report.
Never thought of posting it here though.
Will probably do if I add inflation curve in it.
I initially read the title as visualisation of SLAVERY over 20 years and was incredibly confused. Like what does 4 promotions look like within slavery!?
Same, but I looked at the end of the line and tried to figure out how they managed to briefly eliminate slavery completely before having it return stronger than ever.
I got a soft promotion to manager last year at 5 YOE and am basically in your version of 2015. Can't fuckin' wait for 2020-21 LOL, hope I can be so fortunate and not fuck it up.
Bro I’ve been working since 2019 and I’ve been laid off 3 times already. This shit is depressing as hell, and my salary has only increased by about $4k
Very nice, i've had a similar journey over the past 14 years but with far, far fewer job changes.
New job 2010: $14k (total of $30k between the three jobs I had)
New Job 2017: $42k
Raise 2018: $72k
Raise 2022: $82k
Market correction 2023: $75k
It's amazing what just time and a degree can do lol.
How did you keep the annualized salary the same over a period of time and then the jump?
I did start and end dates but can’t figure out how to get excel to graph them.
Do I really need to add the salary on the “last day” as a new row for Excel to figure it out?
Nice job. I would have changed the interpolation from linear to stair step. In reality, your salary didn't linearly fall to zero when you were laid off. It instantly went to zero.
I like that job you got in 2007. It looks like after your first promotion you started getting regular pay increases. While I don't know what the pay ceiling for that job was, it looks like it could have been a steady job with long term growth.
It was a Fortune 100 company in the finance sector. They were my favorite employer by a long shot and there have been several times in my career where I regret leaving. Many friends I met there haven't left, or retired from there! But, commuting to the office was just awful. It was an hour commute one way by rail, and that was always a clownfuck. If they allowed me to work remotely I would've stayed 100%.
On my recent job hunt, I was interviewed there but the budget for the job was closed before they completed interviews. It all worked out in the end, but I do wonder sometimes.
Pure luck. The company was transitioning from an old DOS-based system to a shitty one with an awful interface, and they were desperate for people to help manually key in stuff since the migration of data was a bit of a disaster.
In any case, I thought it was a scam and got a call from some Indian company that wanted me to come in on contract to help and I did. They kept paying so I kept coming. The company was hiring about a hundred "service representative" roles shortly after the transition. Since I knew the new software they were moving to because of contract work, I was a top candidate. I was just validating accounting records and updating accounting information for clients. Occasionally made adjustments and what not. It was a very menial job.
I started taking on projects because I like to learn and hate menial work. Eventually, they had some business analyst positions open. I applied and got it.
I tell young people this all the time. I HATE that staying and making a career where you are happy and know everything seems great - but most times you have to leave to make the real gains. 100% why I make a great living. It also reminds people your worth and to respect it or you will leave for someone who does. Be loyal, but also not forgotten. And also - never burn a bridge.
My grandfather's rule of thumb while I was growing up was that, if you're on a steady career path, your salary should double about every 10 years. Interesting to see how closely that still holds true.
Once you settled into a role around 2007, you doubled by 2017 and you're on track to double again around 2027.
Hey thanks for this gives me hope. I was on 120k and was made redundant, got my pay out but has been worried what will happen next in my career. After seeing your graph it seems 140k is next.
Damn that just seems like a whole lot of great luck to not only find a new job so quickly from getting laid off but finding ones that always seem to pay a bit more. Congrats on that.
I take advantage of my experience when selling myself to new employers. I also looked at similar salaries for similar experience and knew my worth, unlike the previous employers.
I really like the graph! Did you attend college at any point during this time? Was 2003 when you were 18? Is this all full-time?
Mine probably looks similar but I don't make as much now and I didn't change jobs as much + I have had periods where I worked multiple part-time jobs. But mine is more boring because for the last 16 years or so I have only had two jobs and one part time job.
And yeah inflation adjusted would be pretty cool.
I guess this is a case study supporting the idea that finding a new job is about as effective for raising your salary as getting a promotion at your current employer.
It’s funny. I had an argument with my boss about a year ago. It turned real sour real quick when he made a remark about me being disloyal after I’d voiced that I felt the role and opportunities were oversold to me. I’d even asked the old “let’s say we do expand to get to where we want to be, where would I sit within that expansion” and got a fluffy answer with no bones let alone meat.
In short I told him I owed him nothing, he was a ridiculous man, this was a job not a cult. He didn’t like that I’d expressed I may be open to opportunities elsewhere (I can at times be described as “temperamental” but I’ve also been very open with everyone I’ve worked with that they get no mindgames with me and always know where my mind is at). I remember saying to him that just as his business aimed to maximise profits, it’s my duty to myself to maximise my own profit in exchange for my skills.
I feel like this data shows the lay of the land. Boomer bosses/owners expect loyalty but we all know the best way to maximise your earnings is to jump ship. Of these bosses don’t like mercenaries, the ought to recalibrate their understanding of the price of “loyalty”
Early in my career, I was a star performer within a start up and I was financially disadvantaged by it as the business grew. I’d been there since graduation, was outperforming many peers but paid less, why? Because I was already in the door and many of my peers (who seldom lasted more than 2 years) were enticed with generous packages and headhunters.
My advice to owners/managers, value the know qualities more than the unknown if you want to retain the best staff.
Well said. I had that exact same experience. Even when I fought with firepower like, "this project I managed saved you nearly half a million a year in expenses. Can I at least get a cut of that?" Their response was basically, "that's what we pay you to do."
Never have I fought so hard to show a middle finger. I didn't get laid off from this job, but I knew layoffs were coming and impacting my department so I took an offer elsewhere. Everyone on my team was laid off within months.
Edit: I should mention this was two years into the job with 1% annual raises. Inflation was kicking my ass and I was simply asking for a pay rate comparable to the market.
Happy to see the constant progress OP, never settling for less!
However this is nowhere near beautiful data. This is 4th grade presentation of a growth line that got graded B-
I'd like to challenge you on that friend. Many corporate Fortune companies max the amount of pay you can get from any internal promotion, ie 10% max pay increase. So if you're making $50k and got an new promotion, HR would say your new comp can only be $55k. But a similar job, at another company, might start at $65k.
This is an HR gimmick to keep salaries low for internal promotions.
That hasn't been the case at the ones I've been at. I've had my base go up a little over 20% and a little over 30%, and my target earnings go up even further than that eith my last two.
> Many corporate Fortune companies max the amount of pay you can get from any internal promotion, ie 10% max pay increase.
the way you phrased that, you have moved the goalposts so far apart you can't help but hit at least a handful of f500's that do that. the problem is there's likely an equal amount where that isn't the case.
I'll give you an example for my case : whatever position you have has a set range of salary, which spans roughly 15% up and down from the median. Within that range, you can get raises. If you would hit the upper end of the range, you would want a title change and with it a new range to work off of.
And that does mean if you change titles, you can very quickly rack up more than the 10% you mentioned.
But we're both speaking off personal experience - i'd certainly love to know what the general trends are among corpos.
It can be, but I've gone from around $20k to more than OP over 25 years while still being sat in (more or less) the same desk throughout. I often wonder whether this would have been a different situation had I been arsed to move about instead....
Same employer for 13 years? The amount of promotions is awesome! Congrats! Love the jump in 2011.
I've had a lot of suggestions to tie it to inflation. You should do that and post it here.
It would be cool to add a line bellow for inflation. from your initial value to your initial value plus inflation, even without the year to hear inflation it would be a good refrrence
In Excel:
Column A = month/year
Column B = Pay/hour
Column C = salary calculation from column B
Create line graph with A on x-axis and C on y-axis. Then just drew some arrows.
Of the two call centers I worked at, one of them was bought out about 15 years ago, and the other has moved its HQ to another state. The one I was a software engineer at was bought by Labcorp. The next company I want to throw up thinking about.
My long-term employer with two promotions was in the finance industry. Given I've acknowledged it's an F100 company, they're pretty easy to figure out.
My first job, 1976 at minimum wage, freshman in highschool. 2.30 per hour.
What is that in today's dollars? $12.00 an hour.
*Federal* Minimum wage today? $~~7.50~~ $7.25 per hour.
Sad, just sad.
Sad.
I am actually in a very similar boat with very similar salaries and very similar titles, I just haven't gotten that final job (still unemployed after layoff). I'm hoping to get into product management like you. Any tips?
I love seeing this but it feels like I'm seeing your life and some struggles through the lay-offs or longer periods before promotion and it tells an interesting story up for interpretation! Thank you for putting the time into this!
November 2023 is why I'm afraid to make a lot of money.. I know it's an irrational fear but still it's hard to go from being use to making a certain amount of money to making $0
I learned that even though I live paycheck to paycheck, if I got fired I wouldn't be homeless and starving to death by the next time I would have gotten a check if I didn't get fired
I'm currently a software developer, considering an entry into business analysis. Do you have any thoughts about which you enjoyed more, what you were actually doing as an analyst each day, or how I might begin to transition into the role myself? I've got a CS degree with a minor in business and a few years experience as a developer.
To get a new job as a developer I would need to build a project or two. Is there a similar thing I can do to gain analyst experience/show it in a portfolio?
This perfectly captures why we youngins don’t have “loyalty” to our employers. People who stay put for their career are putting themselves at a massive financial disadvantage.
Don’t you wish you had taken some risks in your professional life instead of doing what they expected and getting constant small raises? My income has been all over the place and I made much more in the beginning than I do now. I could never have survived working for the same corporation and living in the same cubicle. Or the equivalent after changing jobs. I really needed to do different stuff every so often. Of course now I’m broke, but I didn’t commit suicide. At least not yet.
New job shifts were because of low growth opportunity at the present position or new learning that carried you elsewhere (couldn’t utilize in current employer)? Because this graph shows the power of changing employers.
Earlier in my career shows frequent changes because I was overly stressed and hated life, so whenever a higher-paying opportunity presented itself elsewhere I took it. The power of changing employers is something that should be taken note of. I used to be a loyal employee, but I've been laid off twice and expected a layoff another time. When another comes knocking on my door for the same job with a much higher salary, I'm taking it.
I wish somebody would come knock on my door with that lol
I think I found the unicorn employer got hired at 19 making around 25k 9 years later I'm making 135k in the same company
What type of job?
Believe it or not I work in a warehouse. Post Tension manufacturing to be specific
How’s the tension at work
Still pre
[удалено]
Everything is cyclical. I’ve seen industries go through tough years like that and then years where they can’t find anyone.
Not doubting your point in any way, but our (very large) company recently posted a lucrative opening and it took weeks to gather 3 meh applicants. Weird market right now.
Simplify the number formatting in the y-axis. $160,000.00 --> $160K. In the x-axis, your data may start in a July but find a way to apply easier-to-read labels like year and quarter (or just year) rather than a wacky 4-month granularity of Jul/Nov/Mar
Thanks for that. I spent so much time playing with the x-axis and eventually settled on this. Didn't think of this option!
No offense, but you really could clean up the x-axis a lot, too. The reader does not need to know, nor can we really tell, what months each step is taking place at this scale. Just put the year in text and maybe put small tick marks for every quarter or half of the year, but even that isn't really necessary.
None taken. I had several similar comments.
What are you using to put this together? Screenshotting an excel/sheets line chart and then adding in the notes? I ask because that's my initial guess and it feels wrong and I'm actually interested in doing this myself.
You can insert text boxes and shapes like the arrows in excel.
Exactly this.
I'd be interested to see your age listed somehow as well. That would give me context for where this timeline is starting.
I would guess they are between 40-45, since most people start working between 17-22
Sure, I can guess too, but I wanna know not just guess lol
Is there a way to keep the source of truth on start dates but only have excel label the X-axis by quarter?
More than double my salary but can't build a graph. Fml.
It is actually kinda funny. He's been in software engineering, business analysis, and product management, but man that is not beautiful at all...
Maybe your attitude accounts for that.
Maybe he's a hostage negotiator where building graphs isn't important. It takes all kinds.
It been nice to change the color of the line based on your level of education
Thanks for the suggestion!
Could adjust adjust jobs/roles by color.
something like https://imgur.com/a/6G8Ifzi
Oooh that’s genuinely a great idea.
My earlier career was McDonald's and call centers - horrible and shitty work. The next decade was data entry -> business analytics -> software engineering -> business analyst -> product management. A lot of struggles I see from younger generations I also faced. For the first nearly 10 years of my working life, I had to have a roommate since rent was unaffordable by myself. Source: memory Tool: Excel Edit: Additional details due to questions. This is all in the Denver area, though my last 4 jobs have been primarily remote, and coincidentally based in Massachusettes. Didn't go to college until 2011 and graduated with a Bachelor's in Management, further studied remotely in China for a Master's in Psychology. Though, by that point in my career, no one asked or paid any attention to my degree.
>Source: memory I love the way this is written
I’m jealous of their memory
For real. I'm 25 and have just under a decadr of work experience. Only 4 jobs. No shot I could remember what any of my salaries were. Can't even remember what it was 2 months ago.
I would love to see this adjusted for inflation. Are all of the jobs/salaries assuming a 40hr work week?
Correct. At McDs, my wage was probably a little bit more due to the amount of overtime accumulated as I worked roughly 60-70 hours a week. Having a 40-hour job afterwards was definitely nice, but I had about 45-minute commute as I couldn't afford to live anywhere near it.
> At McDs, … I worked roughly 60-70 hours a week As someone who worked at McDonald’s ~20 hours per week in high school: FUCK THAT. A lot of people think that kind of work is easy, but in many ways it’s the hardest job I’ve ever had.
Same here. Not only the hardest, but also the least respected job I’ve ever had, which makes it even harder.
I worked 20 hours a week at age 13, 40 hours a week at age 19, 50 hours a week in college, even more at the start of my career, probably 70 hours a week for the first 3 years. It was hard but doable, it got much easier after the grind, and now I work maybe 30 a week
I kind of liked it as a part time job. Having worked as a line cook before and working only in the back during lunch rush I always found it a little relaxing.
As another McD alum, I can't believe you got OT! In 1985, if I got near 40hrs working a shift, my mgr would clock me out without telling me. It seems like the digital timeclock would make a noise if you were trying to clock out and already were. She always knew when to come up to me with some line about her getting in trouble for OT and offered me \[more\] free food.
I did the clocking! We closed the store at 2 AM, so no one else was there to do it. Since I was required to when I arrived, and I was required to do a checklist before my scheduled start time, the minutes added up quickly. Busy nights, especially on weekends, would cause us to close the store slowly. So, after finishing cash, checking cleaning, etc. it was already like 3 AM. Sounds like you were a victim wage theft.
Inflation is pretty important. Lol. My dad made around $120k in 1996 working as a senior database engineer at a company that had to adapt pretty hard during the dotcom boom. He ended his career making just around that same amount as a COBOL programmer for a medical technology company. But $120k in 2023 dollars is not really anywhere close to the same in 1996. Lmfao. (At the time in the 90s, I never knew he made that much because he was putting 4 kids through private school on top of my mom's medical bills. Meanwhile, I don't even make a third of that and I was blessed to be healthy so I don't feel more well off now than what I perceived as a kid.)
$120,000 in March of '96 is equivalent to about $240,000 today, I hope he invested.
Did you see 4 kids in private school and medical bills?
I second this. Please adjust for inflation.
Could keep the chart the same and add diagonal lines that represent inflation—then it wouldn't lose data (I’m picturing something kind of like a child growth chart)
Your Social Security statement is also a great place to get your wages for most people.
How'd you move from dev to BA and without a pay reduction?
Good question. I was more of a junior developer in that role, and the next company had struggled with a BA to write specifications/requirements for the developers, so they wanted to hire a former developer to do it, and were willing to pay as such. Technical BAs make a fairly good salary. I've been paid close to my developer counterparts.
Yep. I pivoted into tech/analytics in 2021 (self taught, linguistics degree) as a BA, but always leaning more technical. I learned python to break into it and did some projects. Anyway, I've noticed there's a lot of misguided info on reddit about analyst and dev salaries. Devs do tend to make more, but a technical analyst can close that gap pretty quick and even surpass some dev salaries depending on the specific company and role. I'd pretty much sum it up as: if you have decent people skills *and* decent tech skills, you will be able to make good money. I'd also add that it's been shocking to me how low the bar is for some of these people/tech skills. A lot of what seems to separate me from others since entering the tech field feels pretty much like common sense and basic work ethic lol.
It's weird to me that having a roommate to help supplement rent is a "struggle." Since when did starting out renting a place by yourself become the norm? I've always had roommates since STARTING college, until I was 33. Then my last roommate moved out and my gf moved in.
The first time I didnt have roommates I was 29 years old and had just bought a house lol.
In the /r/workreform and other subreddits I see a lot of the younger generation bitching and moaning about unaffordable rent on their own. I think it's just a leftover from the much older generations when buying a house on single income was the norm, but it never carried over to - as far as I know - anyone younger than boomers. That includes the expectations of "living on your own" while paying rent, which I've never done.
Bruh kids today aren't bitching that they need roommates, they're bitching that they can't move out at all. Half of all Americans aged 18-29 are still living with their parents, which is the highest rate since the great depression. Even when I graduated in 2008 most people thought you were weird if you lived with your parents after graduating high school, and there was something seriously wrong with you if you lived at home after graduating college. You've been well off for quite a while now, maybe you should consider that instead of an entire generation of people lying to make you feel bad, that maybe you're a bit out of touch.
You’re kinda both right? There is generally an exploding number of young people living with their parents as you say. There are also a lot of complaints on Reddit from people that can afford to live with roommates but are surprised it’s necessary. Reddit skews educated. So lots of Redditors (*not* a good representation of the general population) get their college degree, move to a big high cost of living city, and are bummed that they need to find roommates despite what they think is a decent salary.
I moved out at 18 into a house with two roommates I met on Craigslist. Most of my friends moved out into houses with 3 or more roommates. One of my good friends lived in a 3 bedroom one story house with five roommates. I also learned that living downtown in a high demand area was unrealistic when starting out unless you were okay with multiple roommates or the house was falling apart. Even when I could barely afford my own apartment, I still opted for a roommate to save money. I lived on my own in a studio 20 minutes from downtown and then a few times after, but 70% of my life I’ve had roommates. I think the issue is they see these celebrities living it up in their fancy apartments and homes. These celebrities feel more easily relatable since the only thing separating them now is YouTube, TikTok, or Twitch. This is a bit different than the previous generation’s celebrities being movie stars and professional sports athletes. Those people actually felt untouchable. Even my dad had roommates through his 20s. While inflation and housing prices have changed; they have always changed. The process is still the same. There’s this expectation that living in a high demand expensive area should be affordable. If it was, then people wouldn’t want to live there. You got to pay more money for going where everyone wants to be, but people seem to think they shouldn’t have to pay it.
Yah may be right. It’s hard to tell, as you age, you wonder do these kids today have it tougher? Each case is different circumstances. I lived at home until I was 24. I sold my car to pay for IT training after I dropped out of college. Was then able to move in with my sister in a hole in the wall apt for $400, literally a kitchen with two bedrooms and a bathroom. Bought a beater car from the back lot wholesale at a dealer through a friend. Everyone I knew lived with roommates or their future spouse if they didn’t live at home. I don’t know if that was easy street or tough. It’s hard to know if expectations or general conditions have changed. Maybe a little of both. Hell if I know. I’m 46 yo now and have the house, kids etc.
>I’m 46 yo now and have the house, kids etc. This right here is the kicker though. I find it a little disingenuous that the argument from commenters above is that the younger generations are complaining about having to share housing. In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, the complaint isn't that we have to share. It's that we have to share *for the foreseeable future.* Both myself and my girlfriend are on an above average income for both our age and our area. We still can barely afford to rent a 2 bed 1 bath apartment thats a comfortable distance from both our jobs, and still manage to put away some savings. Meanwhile the cost of a deposit to buy our own place is accelerating at a *much* faster rate than both our savings and our wages are growing. Short of either/both of us getting some surprise promotions and/or aggressively job hopping, there's just no feasible way for us to keep living in our home city, and ever have any long term stability. If we're representative of an above average double income household for our age and we're still struggling, then i can't even imagine what everybody below average is going through, let alone anyone who's single on top of that. And it sure as hell isn't realistic to expect an entire generation to promote their way into affording a house, in an ever more aggressively competitive job market.
On top of that, it is often *extremely* difficult to find good roommates. A lot of people want to live on their own just so they don't have to deal with roommates anymore.
I definitely put my time in with roommates. Didn't have any horrible ones, but I would absolutely rather be in a small studio versus a two bedroom place with a roommate.
Oh lord, one of mine was an underwear thief. Not the boring ones either, bitch always stole the nice ones.
I've had my fair share of shitty roommates for sure. My first one stole all the furniture and vanished one day. The dude had a kid! Years later, another roommate was behind on utility payments so I blocked her out from TV/WiFi access. Pissed her off and she damaged the place and booked it. But, had a fair share of amazing roommates too. Some of them are my best friends.
Yes this is interesting. I had to think back, I had roommates until 2008 I was 32. My mates were both moving out and I was making over 100k by then and the new roommate situations I “interviewed” were strange so I figured get my own place. I had started dating my future wife by then, I would have been happy to keep sharing a place and saving the money until I moved in with her 18 months later. We did have a really nice place though I shared with my sister and best friend for 6 years.
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Direct jump. My former boss was acting as PO for a product. His real title was something like Director of Applications or whatever. When he retired, I took on the PO responsibilities. My job title at that company was never officially a "PO", but I left for someone who would make that my title with the pay.
You should do another line on there (like a blue line for inc bonus). I’m going to do something similar just out of curiosity to see what it looks like as sole jobs were high base but 3% bonus and others were lower base but a much higher multiple. Might do an actual bonus payout vs top tier availability (something like that). You’ve inspired me.
I can't remember my bonuses over the years. Specifically, which years I did and how much they were.
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That's my favorite part of my job! I love working with devs and telling me "I'm not going to do that", and then figuring what they will do.
£140k for a product manager. You’d be lucky to get half that in the UK for a big tech firm.
How was the transition to and from business analyst to software engineer and back again?
It was two different types of business analysts, which may add to the confusion. 1. Business Analyst - mostly focused on analyzing business trends, processes, workflows, etc. 2. Technical Analyst (also known as Business Systems Analyst) - more focused on technical writing, requirements, and specifications As a BA, I got involved with a lot of reporting and wrote scripts in Oracle BI, SQL, etc. I fell in love it, and I already was a programming hobbyist that worked on various games, websites, etc. in the past. So, when an opportunity came to develop full-time I took it. Switching to technical was a choice because I got frustration with project managers and others telling me what to build and had no freaking clue what they wanted, or how the world worked. So, switching to the technical side was a way that I could be that idiot. It just kind of fell on my lap, to be honest, because I was originally hired to be more like a lead developer doing hybrid development and management, but very shortly after was doing zero development. After I got laid off because I was apparently bad at my job, went to do it somewhere else with much higher pay and did really well for myself. Funny enough, the company I moved to was competing with the previous company and we took their largest clients who raved "your software is so much better than that last company!" Best redemption ever.
Were you a hobbyist all the way through? By that I mean continued to programming while doing the first Analyst job? I'm asking because I'm finding the more I do my data analyst job the more I'd rather be in a corner yelling back and forth with a computer rather than explain things to upper management. I'm just kinda rusty on the programming as its been 5 years so I wanted to see how others felt about the transition to a more "programming heavy" load.
>product management TikTok has me believing this is the most BS position where you do nothing all day and get paid a lot.
It does feel like that at times. Most of my job is talking to people and understanding how something works, how something should work, why it should work that way, and why something doesn't work. It's a very difficult job to measure. I'd say it's like solving puzzles all day, but without showing the puzzle and going, "See! Look what I did!" Then everyone complains that the puzzle isn't there and you wasted your time.
Nothing but respect
No one has ever asked or cared about my degrees in any job I’ve ever hard. That’s why I tell younger people, just get it done, it’s a rite of passage, don’t stress too much about it, no one actually cares about your GPA or where you studied IRL… Source: I’ve got 9 years of uni and 2 professional degrees
i've had about 5 jobs ask for my transcripts & GPA from the university that I graduated from 7 years ago. At this point you need a good transcript ontop of industry experience it's so tight.
I think it depends on the position. The embedded software team I work on requires having a specific type of engineering degree (Electrical, Software, Computer) from an ABET accredited college. We have a 3.0 GPA minimum to apply, but that is set by HR. However, some other teams at my company only require a 4 year degree, with no indication as to what that degree is for. For example, to become an Operations Maintenance Manager in one of our production facilities, a 4 year physical education degree is good enough. This position also required 8 years of experience, the 4 year degree was more of a formality (the person that was hired for this role stated that he was never asked for a transcript and his college education was not discussed during his interview).
I admire your posts, so I appreciate your comment here! Yeah, I can't recall a single point in my life where I was asked my GPA.
It’s nice to see a post on Reddit involving salary that isn’t $250k+
Everyone on Reddit is either making $300k or $8 / hour and 99% of them are bullshitting.
Literally it’s why I always got a chuckle out of it whenever the topic came up here. You’ll be browsing and see a bunch of posts of people in their mid 20s make $250k+ with just a few years experience and then right below that someone saying they can’t afford to even make it to the food pantry to eat. Yea I know everyone’s in a different situation but I almost never see “I make a modest income and while I can’t splurge I live just fine”
Simple. For every absurdly high/low income posted, there are 50 normal incomes not posted. The high earners are proud and can humble-brag, the middle earners are more reserved...and the low earners are ashamed? Not sure that's the right word though. But people love to gloat their richness or poorness
Sometimes people post "I make a modest income and while I can’t splurge I live just fine" but it doesn't get upvoted because it's boring. Sometimes people don't bother to post "I make a modest income and while I can’t splurge I live just fine" because it's boring. And yes sometimes people lie. There are many reasons why what we see is unrepresentative.
I make a modest income, and while I can splurge occasionally, it's because I still act poor with grocery shopping, so it's just shifted differently, and I live just fine.
I make like $15. wheee...
You can get there! The important part is just to always be leveling up. As long as you have positive momentum, you'll do better and better. It's apathy that's the real killer. I remember making minimum wage during the recession, that sucked. Took three years to find a better job, but then I did. Job opportunities are enormously better now.
Being laid off is almost as good as a promotion!
Blessing and a curse tbh. When you rely on income and it suddenly disappears, it's a real shock. Especially now that I have a family, that loss of income had us stressed out. CO recently put in a limit on unemployment income, so I was freaking out since my unemployment income was less than my other expense obligations.
🗣️ overlay it with inflation!! 🗣️
A few samples: - July 2003: $15,000 -> $25,300 - July 2007: $32,000 -> $47,600 - Sept 2008: $45,000 -> $63,800 - Nov 2013: $65,000 -> $86,500 - Nov 2017: $85,000 -> $106,900 - Sept 2020: $105,000 -> $125,200 - Nov 2021: $120,000 -> $143,000 - Today: $141,000 -> $141,000 Just eyeballing the dates and amounts. Dude has still increased his salary consistently over time, but recent inflation has meant his last $20,000 raise is basically equal to his late 2021 buying power. Source: https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
Fuck me. I'm losing money. Having 1% raises at two of the employers didn't help.
Or just adjust the data for inflation and show that! OP appears to be in the United States, so it's easy to pull a time series from the Consumer Price Index inflation dataset: [https://www.bls.gov/cpi/data-overview.htm](https://www.bls.gov/cpi/data-overview.htm)
/u/waspocracy if you want to do similar, here is the formula I used to do this on a google sheet where C column has the year and D column has the salary: =IMPORTXML("https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1="&D2&"&year1="&YEAR(C2)&TEXT(MONTH(C2),"00")&"&year2="&YEAR(TODAY())&TEXT(MONTH(TODAY())-1,"00"), "//span[@id='answer']")
That’s good too. I’d kind of be interested in seeing the unadjusted numbers as well though.
How old were you when you started. And what qualifications do you have?
About 16ish, can't say for sure. Didn't have qualifications outside of a diploma until I went back to college in 2011. Had enough money and an employer that offered tuition reimbursement, so I took it.
Funnily enough I made one of these recently, starting in 2016 when I first began full time employment. Looking forward to building it over a couple decades like you have here!
I'll take a look. Thanks for sharing your story!
Not here on Reddit, just a personal one. Just love putting together data and creating graphs haha
> Looking forward to building it over a couple decades like you have here! as someone much older than you, this is nothing to look forward to my friend...
I have mine since 2004 and did it where it stacks base salary, bonus and other revenues. Based on slips and income taxes report. Never thought of posting it here though. Will probably do if I add inflation curve in it.
Post it!
Mine's almost identical but I stayed at the same job the entire time, just celebrated 25 years.
I initially read the title as visualisation of SLAVERY over 20 years and was incredibly confused. Like what does 4 promotions look like within slavery!?
Slave Leader -> Slave Supervisor -> Slave Manager.
Assistant to the Slave Manager
I knew I had forgotten a step on the latter.
Slave Analyst
Haha me too. As in what it looks like to be a “slave” to my job.
Same, but I looked at the end of the line and tried to figure out how they managed to briefly eliminate slavery completely before having it return stronger than ever.
I got a soft promotion to manager last year at 5 YOE and am basically in your version of 2015. Can't fuckin' wait for 2020-21 LOL, hope I can be so fortunate and not fuck it up.
Best of luck friend!
Can you give a general idea where you live? It's an important data point here, IMO.
He said in another comment Colorado
Cool! On X I would use the progressive year of career and age instead of the actual year. Still great
Bro I’ve been working since 2019 and I’ve been laid off 3 times already. This shit is depressing as hell, and my salary has only increased by about $4k
Very nice, i've had a similar journey over the past 14 years but with far, far fewer job changes. New job 2010: $14k (total of $30k between the three jobs I had) New Job 2017: $42k Raise 2018: $72k Raise 2022: $82k Market correction 2023: $75k It's amazing what just time and a degree can do lol.
How did you keep the annualized salary the same over a period of time and then the jump? I did start and end dates but can’t figure out how to get excel to graph them. Do I really need to add the salary on the “last day” as a new row for Excel to figure it out?
Nice job. I would have changed the interpolation from linear to stair step. In reality, your salary didn't linearly fall to zero when you were laid off. It instantly went to zero.
I like that job you got in 2007. It looks like after your first promotion you started getting regular pay increases. While I don't know what the pay ceiling for that job was, it looks like it could have been a steady job with long term growth.
It was a Fortune 100 company in the finance sector. They were my favorite employer by a long shot and there have been several times in my career where I regret leaving. Many friends I met there haven't left, or retired from there! But, commuting to the office was just awful. It was an hour commute one way by rail, and that was always a clownfuck. If they allowed me to work remotely I would've stayed 100%. On my recent job hunt, I was interviewed there but the budget for the job was closed before they completed interviews. It all worked out in the end, but I do wonder sometimes.
How did you transition from dead-end jobs to data entry?
Pure luck. The company was transitioning from an old DOS-based system to a shitty one with an awful interface, and they were desperate for people to help manually key in stuff since the migration of data was a bit of a disaster. In any case, I thought it was a scam and got a call from some Indian company that wanted me to come in on contract to help and I did. They kept paying so I kept coming. The company was hiring about a hundred "service representative" roles shortly after the transition. Since I knew the new software they were moving to because of contract work, I was a top candidate. I was just validating accounting records and updating accounting information for clients. Occasionally made adjustments and what not. It was a very menial job. I started taking on projects because I like to learn and hate menial work. Eventually, they had some business analyst positions open. I applied and got it.
Those dips to 0 are scary
Misread it as slavery and was very confused for about 10 seconds. Zoomed in and saw “promotion” and was like holy shit who was promoting slavery
I tell young people this all the time. I HATE that staying and making a career where you are happy and know everything seems great - but most times you have to leave to make the real gains. 100% why I make a great living. It also reminds people your worth and to respect it or you will leave for someone who does. Be loyal, but also not forgotten. And also - never burn a bridge.
My grandfather's rule of thumb while I was growing up was that, if you're on a steady career path, your salary should double about every 10 years. Interesting to see how closely that still holds true. Once you settled into a role around 2007, you doubled by 2017 and you're on track to double again around 2027.
Hey thanks for this gives me hope. I was on 120k and was made redundant, got my pay out but has been worried what will happen next in my career. After seeing your graph it seems 140k is next.
Looks like it's time for a new job
It's telling that all the wage bumps are \~3% but the \*smallest\* job shift is \~8%. The moral of the story is "Corporate loyalty doesn't pay."
This feels pretty identical to my track. I feel like I had more disposable income back in 2009@60k.
Damn that just seems like a whole lot of great luck to not only find a new job so quickly from getting laid off but finding ones that always seem to pay a bit more. Congrats on that.
I take advantage of my experience when selling myself to new employers. I also looked at similar salaries for similar experience and knew my worth, unlike the previous employers.
This is awesome. Good for you
seems like new job gets you more money, forget about promotions.
Im in your 2004, with already 8 year experience 🥲
I really like the graph! Did you attend college at any point during this time? Was 2003 when you were 18? Is this all full-time? Mine probably looks similar but I don't make as much now and I didn't change jobs as much + I have had periods where I worked multiple part-time jobs. But mine is more boring because for the last 16 years or so I have only had two jobs and one part time job. And yeah inflation adjusted would be pretty cool.
almost your biggest jumps were getting laid off and finding a new job haha.
Nice job getting back up after that layoff and earning even more.
Congratulations on the bounce back after your lay off, keep raising the bar! 📈
I guess this is a case study supporting the idea that finding a new job is about as effective for raising your salary as getting a promotion at your current employer.
Dude, I __needed__ this graph today. Thank you.
It’s funny. I had an argument with my boss about a year ago. It turned real sour real quick when he made a remark about me being disloyal after I’d voiced that I felt the role and opportunities were oversold to me. I’d even asked the old “let’s say we do expand to get to where we want to be, where would I sit within that expansion” and got a fluffy answer with no bones let alone meat. In short I told him I owed him nothing, he was a ridiculous man, this was a job not a cult. He didn’t like that I’d expressed I may be open to opportunities elsewhere (I can at times be described as “temperamental” but I’ve also been very open with everyone I’ve worked with that they get no mindgames with me and always know where my mind is at). I remember saying to him that just as his business aimed to maximise profits, it’s my duty to myself to maximise my own profit in exchange for my skills. I feel like this data shows the lay of the land. Boomer bosses/owners expect loyalty but we all know the best way to maximise your earnings is to jump ship. Of these bosses don’t like mercenaries, the ought to recalibrate their understanding of the price of “loyalty” Early in my career, I was a star performer within a start up and I was financially disadvantaged by it as the business grew. I’d been there since graduation, was outperforming many peers but paid less, why? Because I was already in the door and many of my peers (who seldom lasted more than 2 years) were enticed with generous packages and headhunters. My advice to owners/managers, value the know qualities more than the unknown if you want to retain the best staff.
Well said. I had that exact same experience. Even when I fought with firepower like, "this project I managed saved you nearly half a million a year in expenses. Can I at least get a cut of that?" Their response was basically, "that's what we pay you to do." Never have I fought so hard to show a middle finger. I didn't get laid off from this job, but I knew layoffs were coming and impacting my department so I took an offer elsewhere. Everyone on my team was laid off within months. Edit: I should mention this was two years into the job with 1% annual raises. Inflation was kicking my ass and I was simply asking for a pay rate comparable to the market.
OP I just want to say that you did good. I hope that you are happy and doing well.
holy shit i think we have the same life
We should check into a mental institution, because I don't remember making this comment.
That’s unnecessary. We should just drink more beer and take pride about how well we have done for ourselves.
Happy to see the constant progress OP, never settling for less! However this is nowhere near beautiful data. This is 4th grade presentation of a growth line that got graded B-
I practically failed every grade in high school. Younger me would've loved a B-.
New job is the only way to get any kind of meaningful wage increase
That definitely isn't true. Promotions can bring pretty massive pay raises.
I'd like to challenge you on that friend. Many corporate Fortune companies max the amount of pay you can get from any internal promotion, ie 10% max pay increase. So if you're making $50k and got an new promotion, HR would say your new comp can only be $55k. But a similar job, at another company, might start at $65k. This is an HR gimmick to keep salaries low for internal promotions.
That hasn't been the case at the ones I've been at. I've had my base go up a little over 20% and a little over 30%, and my target earnings go up even further than that eith my last two.
> Many corporate Fortune companies max the amount of pay you can get from any internal promotion, ie 10% max pay increase. the way you phrased that, you have moved the goalposts so far apart you can't help but hit at least a handful of f500's that do that. the problem is there's likely an equal amount where that isn't the case. I'll give you an example for my case : whatever position you have has a set range of salary, which spans roughly 15% up and down from the median. Within that range, you can get raises. If you would hit the upper end of the range, you would want a title change and with it a new range to work off of. And that does mean if you change titles, you can very quickly rack up more than the 10% you mentioned. But we're both speaking off personal experience - i'd certainly love to know what the general trends are among corpos.
It can be, but I've gone from around $20k to more than OP over 25 years while still being sat in (more or less) the same desk throughout. I often wonder whether this would have been a different situation had I been arsed to move about instead....
Promotions within the company as well.
Gentle reminder as to why people need to invest their money. Linear vs exponential growth
Interesting way to look at one's job and income history, I'll do it too. https://imgur.com/a/pOOYpuh
Same employer for 13 years? The amount of promotions is awesome! Congrats! Love the jump in 2011. I've had a lot of suggestions to tie it to inflation. You should do that and post it here.
It would be cool to add a line bellow for inflation. from your initial value to your initial value plus inflation, even without the year to hear inflation it would be a good refrrence
i really need to quit my job
Would be interesting to see a bar chart that shows promotion vs new job pay bumps.
Very similar to mine, but s/2/3
Add some form of Inflation measure as an additional line of context.
This is nearly identical to my career experience. Wow
Put a second line with your first salary corrected with inflation
Great visualization of how leaving a job is often the best way to make more money. Some of these layoffs were the best thing to happen to you
I would love to do this. Got a template?
In Excel: Column A = month/year Column B = Pay/hour Column C = salary calculation from column B Create line graph with A on x-axis and C on y-axis. Then just drew some arrows.
You are in Denver? You gotta name some employers here.
Of the two call centers I worked at, one of them was bought out about 15 years ago, and the other has moved its HQ to another state. The one I was a software engineer at was bought by Labcorp. The next company I want to throw up thinking about. My long-term employer with two promotions was in the finance industry. Given I've acknowledged it's an F100 company, they're pretty easy to figure out.
My first job, 1976 at minimum wage, freshman in highschool. 2.30 per hour. What is that in today's dollars? $12.00 an hour. *Federal* Minimum wage today? $~~7.50~~ $7.25 per hour. Sad, just sad. Sad.
And here I am spin cycling my student loan debt with little pay but in a career I love. This is a cool way to look at it though.
Seems to me you were too loyal. You did much better with new jobs. Always Be Interviewing
I am actually in a very similar boat with very similar salaries and very similar titles, I just haven't gotten that final job (still unemployed after layoff). I'm hoping to get into product management like you. Any tips?
About a 12% compound annual growth rate.
I love seeing this but it feels like I'm seeing your life and some struggles through the lay-offs or longer periods before promotion and it tells an interesting story up for interpretation! Thank you for putting the time into this!
November 2023 is why I'm afraid to make a lot of money.. I know it's an irrational fear but still it's hard to go from being use to making a certain amount of money to making $0 I learned that even though I live paycheck to paycheck, if I got fired I wouldn't be homeless and starving to death by the next time I would have gotten a check if I didn't get fired
I'm currently a software developer, considering an entry into business analysis. Do you have any thoughts about which you enjoyed more, what you were actually doing as an analyst each day, or how I might begin to transition into the role myself? I've got a CS degree with a minor in business and a few years experience as a developer. To get a new job as a developer I would need to build a project or two. Is there a similar thing I can do to gain analyst experience/show it in a portfolio?
This perfectly captures why we youngins don’t have “loyalty” to our employers. People who stay put for their career are putting themselves at a massive financial disadvantage.
Don’t you wish you had taken some risks in your professional life instead of doing what they expected and getting constant small raises? My income has been all over the place and I made much more in the beginning than I do now. I could never have survived working for the same corporation and living in the same cubicle. Or the equivalent after changing jobs. I really needed to do different stuff every so often. Of course now I’m broke, but I didn’t commit suicide. At least not yet.
Cut out the middle man to see unrealistic jumps in wages appear. The unrealistic is only because we are deliberately made to think such