25 yoe MA PhD with equal time in program/project management as solution architecture. TC has leveled off at $180k wth???
Alright I'm not getting this. We've got ppl in this industry making easily half a mil these days. I have masters in comp Sci, PhD and 25 yoe. Former military. I've been a pm (program, project, product) as well as a solution architect on virtually any platform (sans mainframe, no thanks). TC has only once breached the 200k ceiling. And I was a director and vp. Did I miss the boat folks?
25 yoe in tech or in total?
All in technology. I started working for comp svcs soph year of undergrad
Jump now. Test the waters. Chances are you would land 200+ with that exp.
Yoe, education, past roles don’t really matter. What matters is the company you’re interviewing for and your interview performance.
Yeah I think I chased those diplomas and certs for too long...
I have a feeling you’ll reach $1 million+
Wouldn't that be nice. I'd just like to get to 300k.
PhD in which field
Philosophy. Sorry couldn't help myself. The program was called Business Information Systems and information management. It was basically tech solutioning for pressing business issues. Did my thesis on use of socio economic data to influence medical infrastructure investments.
I understand each individual word in your sentences. But when you put them together like that, I couldn't understand a thing. Sorry.
location？
South Carolino 🙄
Well, that actually explains a lot. Cost of living is more expensive here in the valley. There's also more demand for talents that companies are willing to pay more for them.
Just joined Blind, huh? Those of us who are a bit older started at much lower salaries and then slowly and laboriously moved them upwards over the years only to see the trajectory of new grads blow past us. This has been particularly pronounced in the last number of years. I doubled my pay from a few years ago after realizing what was available. If your goal is money, target the companies that can pay that. One challenge may be unless you have connections and/or experience at the bigger names it’s hard to break in and sort of a chicken-and-egg thing. There are smaller companies that pay this way too but esp in PM or SA I think it’s less normal.
Yup, actually joined for a different reason but a similar convo caught my attention so I jumped in. I think this is a symptom of a greater problem: though tech salaries are better than most the growth rate we saw in the late 90's has been on the downs lope do the sine curve for quite some time now. It's also true that unis are cranking out grads with much more knowledge and more importantly more specialization. So while I started my first "real job" at less than 20k there are recent grads that will not even consider the low 100's. The money is an easier thing to talk about, the underlying fear is that tech is passing me by. And that's terrifying.
I don’t know if grads are that much more specialized but tech does evolve rapidly. Some things have remained relatively stable but certainly specialized areas like ML are often where the biggest pay day can be had. One benefit to being in product (vs dev) is this tends to be less acute, so you aren’t constantly racing to avoid obsolescence. The rate at which frameworks and tech comes and goes is absurd at this point. If you have foundational product skills, ability to influence, and leadership you should be fine.
OP, decades back when you joined the workforce with your fancy degrees , you would be earning more than people with decades of experience, the cycle is continuing. Just understand the market and flow along, no point cribbing. Use your strengths and downplay your weaknesses. Remove all degree dates from resume and look for a leadership position perhaps. After spending 5 years in US, I am understanding that the salaries in some jobs have gone up drastically and I am working towards them now
In my experience degree dates are asked by every resume screening recruiter ever, if only because they need to fill out their form. What's the point removing them initially?
It’s a standard recommended practice for aging resumes, it goes a little way at the initial stages to remove the age bias
One small observation is that you seem to do it all. I immediately wondered how good of a “PM” (p=product) you were (or could be) if you also could do SA, project management, etc, etc. if I interviewed you, I’d simply ask “what is your true passion? And why aren’t you doing that?”. I guess the tl;dr is a _perceived_ lack of specialized, performance based output. With those YOEs, you should be a distinguished leader in your field and the money would follow.
Yes, undoubtedly lack of specialization has stunted me. I started my career as a DBA and stayed in the data field until joining IBM in 01 and being converted in to a pm (billed at higher rate). I kept managing projects and programs until 2011 when I went back to full time architecture. My true passion is sa, pm has become too routine for me. I love finding a way to use tech to solve problems. Should also have admitted to causing some of this decrease in earnings myself. I grew increasingly conscious of the negative impact large financial institutions and my conscience started messing with me. I now work for medicaid.
Work for a company that sells ads or is pissing away billions of dollars of VC money if you want instant TC gains.
Also, I am quadrilingual with experience on 4 continents. Have EU passport allowing me to work anywhere in Europe.
It sounds like you don't really know what folks are paying for, or which companies pay. You just need a better match.