25 year career retro

As I cross 25 years of professional life, I thought it would be helpful to reflect a bit. The posts on Blind skew heavily towards career, and there seem to be plenty of folks earlier in their journey, so maybe some of this will be useful. In fact, I'm writing specifically to the younger/earlier set. Background: over the years I've spent time in 5 companies in multiple industries. The actual work has ranged from embedded systems to backend development, with both IC and management roles (including going back and forth). TC started at $45k, slowly increased, and by 2010, I was a bit over $100k, and I was at $170k last year. I took my first ~$200k role within the past year. It's worth noting that two job changes were actually TC drops. I have a wife (who also works), 2 younger kids, and live in MCOL location. I'm nearing 50 and strongly considering stopping work to spend more time with the kids and de-stress the house from having two working parents. Our financial plan is strong, and we could probably both stop working. NW is around $4M, all from salary or broad market returns (i.e., no inheritance, RSU/ISO windfalls, lucky stock picks, etc.). Lessons: * There are so many cool jobs in tech spanning all sorts of industries. It is a bit dismaying to see folks, especially early in their career, optimizing so much on TC and ending up in a very narrowly focused subset of jobs. Some earlier jobs I had allowed really fun and exotic work, and I'd often be in labs building stuff or in the field at customer sites (like literally outside in fields, deploying equipment). A highlight was climbing around on a massive mining shovel and installing electronics in a working gold mine in the desert. A friend joined the military (intelligence something or another) and was shipped all over the world. Another is launching rockets. These are interesting experiences that you can't just elect to do in retirement. So don't give up too much precious time (especially when young and less encumbered) focusing solely on TC. Look around and see what sort of cool shit you can be doing outside of the mainstream tech boiler room. Jobs should be an experience, too. * My wife and I have always felt rich, mainly because there has been enough buffer between our expenses and income. Our superpower has been living well below our means. I say superpower b/c I look around our neighborhood, and not many people have it. For example, in 25 years I've bought two new cars: a 2000 Civic and a 2008 Prius that I still drive. We cut out cable TV in 2006 and limit ourselves to one streaming service at a time (+ splurge during holidays). We eat at a restaurant 1-2 times/month. These aren't sacrifices but rather just the permanent "diet" we've been on for decades. It feels good to be in control and not pulled by expensive wants and desires. * Low expenses also provide flexibility, especially once you get clear about what your budget and financial plan look like. You can, for example, take lower TC in exchange for more interesting work in the places you want to live. Or you can stop working a bit earlier because you've saved more and your living expenses in retirement will be lower if you've not become accustomed to an inflated lifestyle. * My dad imbued me with decent financial literacy, but a lot of folks aren't as lucky and place their income in extremely risky investments. Learn about diversification and asset allocation. This has really served my NW well without any crazy speculative stuff (beyond play money). For the essentials, go read William Bernstein's "If You Can", and check out bogleheads.org. The financial advice industry is a snake pit, but there are decent financial planners out there, including some that will help for a fixed fee (v.s. the whole % of assets-under-management racket). I like the adage, "The goal isn't to die rich, but to not die poor." * TC is a funny one. For most of my career, TC was opaque. No one knew what anyone made, really, and there was just the occasional salary survey coming out. Usually, I was like, "Wow my job pays pretty well compared to [random other career]", and I wouldn't think much more about it. The very transparent environment we now live in has big upsides (e.g., you're woefully underpaid and now you know it and can fix that), but it can be a stressor too. It can be tough to reconcile: a) I like my job and my financial goals are met, so I'm fine; b) damn, look at all these folks pulling in 3x me... I feel like crap. I'm not immune to this, either. But I try to reframe this as: once my financial bases are covered, and my [upper] middle-class life + retirement is solid, then I'm good, and the marginal benefit of the next dollar isn't that much, so I'm not going to sweat what the other guy makes too much. * At work, I've found that assuming you can at least do the job, the number one indicator of impact and success (both in your role and career) is initiative. The folks leaning in, pushing a bit, being visible, and asking questions, usually are the ones getting good opportunities, raises and promotions. * I've not job-hopped much, mainly b/c I feel like it takes me the better part of a year to really gel with a company and consider myself a major contributor (a point I need to reach for personal satisfaction). But companies are very different, so I've always enjoyed switching when I do. One of my only career regrets is staying too long (12 years!) at one company. It was a huge place, and I did have many roles and variety, but still, I should have moved on earlier. * I've seen family and children come up quite often so a word on that. And I'm setting aside all of the emotions and merely talking about the more practical impact here. Being w/o kids and having some means meant we could construct a very stable environment, but one that also became static and did leave a “now what?” feeling after a bunch of the fun and hobbies were ticked off the list. But my wife and I thrive on challenges and unpredictability, and kids have had us on a 20-year path of change. Day to day, year to year, it's all constantly changing. Personally, I've found having to adapt to all those changes has been good for my mental well-being. When I got into tech professionally, I was incredibly motivated by the idea of getting paid a decent wage to design and build cool things. I do hope a lot of newcomers feel that way as well since there is so much opportunity. And because of that I'd really encourage y'all to try lots of things and have a rich, interesting career. Blind may be fueled by "TC or GTFO", but your own experience will be waaay more complex than that, so keep reassessing the big picture. Good luck!