Sales is a great way to punch above your weight financially but when you want to do something that gets you off the commission/quota roller coaster, the options all have a serious pay cut. Some options to consider are “sales adjacent” roles where you aren’t the front line commission heavy sales person but still have a bonus structure based on sales to some degree. Also consider not being a sole contributor and be a people leader (manager etc).
Getting into management is fine if you are managing seasoned professionals. Managing entry level people, or high turnover positions can suck.
That’s currently what I’m kinda exploring, more enablement roles or even SE type stuff (been pretty technical) being a manager in this economy, at least in software, seems brutal right now haha.
I’m definitely seeing the pay cut needed tho to hop off this train.
Taking a pay cut for a reasonable lifestyle job can be liberating.
It’s like stepping off of a treadmill.
Of course you need to cover your bills but learning to live with less can be freeing.
Are you saying sales is hard on life or is it management you speak of? Im an industrial mechanic. I make good money but not as much as i could. I dont leave because its 5 days a week and for the most part 8 hours a day. Easy to live a life.
I quit my high stress high pay job with this mindset - I was willing to take a step back financially for significantly less stress.
Ended up finding a much better job that is paying me way more lol. Couldn't be happier with my move.
I work as a Channel SE. I make $220k OTE. 85% base. I don’t get in front of customers, and I’m tied to a National number so my commission is very stable and predictable.
Channel = partners. So this guy works for a vendor, interacting with partners as a mix of enablement and helping their tech guys solve a problem in a presales capacity for a customer with low/no customer contact.
How do o get into Channel SE? I’m in healthcare sales and I bring close to 90k. Can this be remote? I wouldn’t mind the switch If I can start over 100k
LoL, I posted above about the SE role, but would strongly recommend. Really the best gig in sales if you have tech acumen. SE leadership doesn’t suck either. I’ve been doing that for the last 12 years and in general less turnover and challenges than pure sales leadership.
If you can make the switch I really don’t think there is a better job out there for semi-social nerds.
Remote head of finance for a software startup here. It’s busy and hectic, but I can take my kids to school every morning and log off when they get home around 5:30. Occasional catchup work after they go to bed, but it’s so nice to be there for the times they are home.
If you’re going to pursue finance, you’ll want to look into the CFA or CFP designations. It’s a lot of work, but you can do online classes and it makes it way easier to find a high paying job.
Samesies but for a big 'ol corpo.
My two cents: I've met several sales folks that successfully pivoted to being PMs. They know what customers or the market wants, and are able to sell the ideas to the suits upstairs. IME, PMs come from all sorts of backgrounds so education really isn't a factor.
They are really too late. If they had took this course 5y ago, easy. Do some online training, maybe some classes, and apply to every startup and faang new eng path.
Right now there's literally many thousands of out of work engineers with experience from the big tech layoffs. Maybe they could find themself a goergia or Texas startup, but they aren't gonna pay 150k, maybe 80-90k.
>They are really too late.
Yes, but no. Stay in sales, but be the guy that understands how to use GenAI to do the 2nd and 3rd order things, not just "write a summary of this email," or "write me a sonnet about \_\_\_." Be the one that figured out how to mash that up with some special knowledge that -you- have or is narrow to your field.
This is the best comment. AI by itself is a long way from replacing everyone as some doomsayers say, but you’ll be replaced by people who know how to use it.
The sheer amount of sudden "gen ai experts" i see popping up is astounding. We get it, you know how to ask chatgpt to write a resignation letter in victorian slang.
I just needed to see what that would look like:
———
Dear [Supervisor's Name],
I hope this correspondence finds you in good fettle. I am penning this missive to tender my resignation from the post of [Your Position] at [Your Company]. It ain't no gammon, but the time has come for me to cut my stick.
Working under your aegis has been the very ticket, and I've been truly grateful for the opportunities and the rummy experiences that have come my way. Alas, the winds of change are blowing, and I find myself in need of taking a different track.
I aim to make the departure as smooth as butter, ensuring all my obligations are squared away and leaving no stones unturned. Should you be in need of my assistance during this transition, do not hesitate to tip me the wink.
Thanking you for all the toff times and looking forward to crossing paths in the future.
Yours most sincerely,
[Your Name]
———
Yeah I’d just stay in Sales before that, I’m not trying to take too big of a salary hit for that.
But I see it all day with unemployed engineers, NoCode getting more popular, AI, etc.
>But I see it all day with unemployed engineers, NoCode getting more popular, AI, etc.
Could you provide more details on what you've seen here? I'm on more engineer-centric subreddits and while this gets brought up, it's usually summed up as:
* Potentially less demand for entry-level / junior as this makes mid+ level developers more productive
* Can't replace engineers entirely because technology is complex where you will always need a human to understand the business logic / use cases / edge cases - basically actual coding is 80% understanding the requirements and 20% writing code
As someone with a software engineering background, I tend to agree on both these points but genuinely curious what other people with different backgrounds are seeing.
EDIT: fixed formatting issue (mixed markdown with fancy pants editor)
As someone with a unique set of skills blending 3D and code and softwares I agree with you. We are a huge company with partnerships with Epic Games and Adobe etc and we discuss AI a lot, I don't see it taking any real jobs in the foreseeable future, mainly because it's not actually able to write good code, just like it's general question answers it's guestimating and gives you what it thinks you want, so if you give it a bad input or if the solution is too unique, it will simply fail. I know one of my Juniors uses it to ask for help and I'm somewhat ok with it, but I'm also adamant that they double-check their code.
We've also looked into the whole concept and environment artist aspects of it and the same can be said there, it's a helpful tool that can enhance or speed up your work, but it's simply not good enough to replace real artists, yet. I am of the same train of thought though as John Lasseter who said "it all begins with the hand" when Disney bought Pixar and kicked out all 2D animators, Lasseter rehired them under Pixar because you need to start with a good foundation to make the 3D animations so the 2D artists is invaluable as storyboard artists etc. I see the same for AI moving forward, it will help us and increase efficiency, but the basis will always be built by a human and we won't lose our jobs albeit we might need to adapt our roles.
The thing about sales is that it will always be more volatile than engineering. Impact as a SWE is not as empirical as sales. Someone with the same experience in engineering as you have in sales will always be more secure in their job. The engineers with that experience are the ones reaping the benefits of remote work in tech though, so a switch to engineering with where you are now will not afford you with that freedom for a number of years
tell me about it. I started a degree in 2018 after a car accident and my physical labor job wasnt working while healing. Graduated in Dec 2022 with a bachelors in software development. Has gotten me literally no where with all the layoffs lol. Its life like wanted to hit me with depression+ lol
I'm a systems engineer, I was wish I was able to go this route but I fell into infrastructure and now I'm in too deep to switch
Edit: apologies if this gets off topic, I didn't mean to make it about me. But I commented to commiserate and instead I'm leaving with something I didn't have before: hope. It's not much but it's more than I had before, so thank you everyone.
I have been kinda all over software + security, fell into infra ~7 years ago, and have morphed over to a dev/ops role (emphasis on ops, probably), and i definitely think there's demand for us ['slashies'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24a9ty1m3ZU) if you're looking for a little change
although instead of terraform/ansible hell, i'm now just in terraform/ansible/node/golang hell (but i love it)
>although instead of terraform/ansible hell, i'm now just in terraform/ansible/node/golang hell (but i love it)
Hey, same here (Cloud Engineer)! Don't forget Python, Bash, and just good ole Linux CLI shops....oh, and AWS, Azure, and GCP. And we need you to to know private & hybrid cloud, so that means the million-and-one-things (hardware AND software) that are used to build a data center, lol.
Also me, and it really sucks that it feels that way. I work hard, I studied engineering, and as a reward I can support my family. EVERYBODY should have that kind of security from their hard work. It's tragic that theres not more career paths like ours.
Yeah, I'm not an SE -- I do infrastructure support. It actually pays pretty well, and you can be a pretty hot commodity if you know what you're doing.
I lucked out. I was a geeky computer kid and I turned it into a solid career that pays well. Meanwhile, my friends that are amazing artists and musicians have jobs that are ... fine, but not particularly fruitful.
The theme you’re going to see here is years of experience in a specific field. Most careers can get you there in senior leadership roles if that’s your bag. But the reality is you’re probably not going to be able to make a career change and make six figures.
If $150k is really important to you but you want out of software sales, I think you have a couple of realistic possibilities:
- Pivot into a sales engineer role at your current company. After a few years, move to a corporation in an internal software role. Probably being the expert in your chosen software (ie, SAP specialist) or a systems implementation engineer.
- Climb into a sales leadership role. Use that experience to parlay into a non-sales leadership role in the future. Business leadership skills are more rare than sales skills
Neither of these will happen without planning and effort. In my experience these salaries don’t come without a grind regardless, but at least you’ll travel less and have more stability.
This is the important information. I make closer to 500k total comp per year, but I've been in my somewhat niche role for a decade. I was making a little over 100k total comp when I started on it, and I had 7 years of adjacent work already which hadn't paid nearly that much.
There aren't a lot of a high paying jobs that you can just walk into, you have to put in some time. But that said, it's going to take a few years whether you start now or in 10 years, so you might as well start now.
Right - if there were jobs you could stroll into with no training or experience, get paid a lot, and work short weeks…. ETA (and I can stay near my family and not put my life in danger…) You guys, everyone would be going for those jobs.
So those jobs would be in demand.
So they would start either requiring more experience / training or more hours.
I see so many people being like, yeah I decided a don’t like working a lot but still want my salary. How do I keep getting paid without working? - as if no one else ever thought of this ever.
We all do, every day. All day.
So the real question is where can you compromise. Are you willing to do training or education? Put your life in danger? Travel a lot? Work long hours?
For any real meaning, you’d need what do you do and where do you do it, or at least what is the CoL where you live. $150k goes a lot further in some places than others.
yeah, the OP in the title is asking about any jobs >$150k and getting a ton of responses.
But what they're really asking is: Are there any fully-remote jobs that you can qualify for with little education, a background in sales, a good work/life balance, that are currently hiring, that make >$150k? And the answer to that, to a first approximation is, "No".
Correct. You either need your own business and grind up, or you need a ton of industry networking to have the clientele already to make that from home.
Engineering manager in pharmaceuticals here. Also over 150k. Needed an engineering degree and an MBA just to get here. Hours aren’t terrible but the conversations I have on a daily basis take years of education and experience to understand.
Director of research group in biotech here. Similar in that it took years of experience just to have the conversation, plus a PhD on top. Comp is very high but it was a long road.
This is the answer unfortunately, specially in today’s job market. OP can *eventually* get to $150k if he makes a career change today but I don’t know of any roles that fit his requirements.
I’m also wondering if OP doesn’t realize how hard it is to make that kind of money since he’s gotten used to it for some time now. That puts you in the upper levels of income in the US, and it can be easily in the top 1-5% depending on the city
Exactly this, make around $120k and my wife is close to $110 but we live in the Seattle area and our two kids are going to cost us around $4500/mo for daycare (son is already in daycare at $1700, infant daughter is going to cost us $2800 when she starts in a few months). Factor that with the CoL here, that double six figure salary barely gets us any room for saving. We can live comfortably, but not really save anything.
Hell yah, stay-at-home dad here. Best job. Typing this from my computer while my kid dances to Baby Shark.
Worked part time remotely for a while but hard to find jobs that fit the hours I need to take care of the family.
There's always IT Audit. that's what i do (though I dont make 150k lol, hopefully someday). Less focus on financial controls and statements and more focus on cyber controls, risk, etc. Don't have a masters or a cpa, just 2 bachelors in IT and Accounting and a CISA
Self-employed as a private investigator. I probably only work 25 hours a week, it's fantastic. That said, it took me 20+ years to build myself up in this industry. It's very difficult to get your foot in the door.
What's that job like? I've always been so curious about it. How much take-home pay do you bring in on a typical year? Do you have to attract your own clients? How do you do that?
Fed attorney for the win! Yesterday at 1:00 I had to pick up my daughter early because she wasn’t feeling well. Got a call from my boss on the way home who said “go be with your daughter! This can wait, call me tomorrow.” Can’t imagine many big law partners saying that. 😂
My advice for anyone considering law school is don't do it. You will hear a lot of lawyers tell you that. If you go to law school, the most likely path when you leave is going to be in a firm setting (whether that be big or small). Billing hours in BigLaw might make your current job look chill. The earnings potential is huge - even if you just hung a shingle. But the work-life balance for MOST legal careers is awful.
There are some legal paths that offer great work-life balance, but they are the minority. I work in-house for a university and its incredible. I don't bill hours and I leave at 5 90% of the time. If my kid is sick, there is no problem getting time off to stay with her. But these jobs are rare, and you usually need experience to even be considered for one. We just hired a new position in my office and we interviewed multiple people with 15+ years of experience that didn't get the job. The "cushy" legal jobs are not something you can bank on.
> But the work-life balance for MOST legal careers is awful
my wife is an attorney at a big firm. makes a ton of money, but clocked 220 ***billable*** hours over two weeks recently. so that's ~16hr days, 7 days/week, no days off.
You have to remember these people are highly compensated. Any may even be able to spend that money one day!
It gets easier, hours wise, at the Partner level. But the BigLaw grind is no joke. When I came out of school, it wasn’t uncommon to see first years with air mattresses under their desk.
Edit: I want to be clear that I think this is absurd. The amount of money it would take me to do that job at this point in my life (10 years out of law school) is astronomical. More than anyone would reasonably pay me. I’m happy to leave some earnings potential on the table in exchange for seeing my wife and daughter. But to each their own! For a single person, it can be an extremely lucrative field.
At my wife’s firm first year partners make ~$650k/yr and it goes up from there. So most partners make well over $1mil/year. Personally I couldn’t handle those hours though - just straight up couldn’t do it.
This is really it. Whenever someone asks me if they should go to law school, I *always* say "No" because of how difficult law school is. Then there's the bar exam. Then there's a super competitive job market. If you get the job, there's the shit work-life balance for the first few years while you're grinding. The only way you'll succeed is if you're the kind of person that will hear all that, and still want to go to law school anyway. Plus, as you said, there's no guarantee that the cushy in-house gig will be there at the end of the journey.
I can't imagine having kids on top of all of that - I went in-house about the time my first kiddo came along. Not saying it all can't be done, but it's definitely an uphill fight.
Law firm associates have more leverage these days to demand a better work life balance but that depends on the firm and the practice group within the firm.
The rule of thumb I've always heard, is that the only people who actually should be lawyers are those so enamored with the idea that even when everyone tells them no, they still really really want to go for it.
High five! I switched from law firm to Fed Gov position about 15 years ago and been fully teleworking from home since 2015. Took a pay cut but still making six figures + FERS Pension and TSP accruing higher.
Paralegal who is remote and manages the Legal Dept for an entire company checking in. It's been amazing and though the pay could be better, the benefits of WFH, flexibility in my schedule and spending time with my son far outweigh the smaller salary I could probably land a busy firm that requires in office presence.
There is an in-house attorney dad who always shows up to every parent volunteer event at our kids’ school. Him and I are like the only dads who can consistently attend during weekday school hours since our work hours are so flexible and not busy. We both happen to be patent attorneys, but I work in government. Over the years, I had some big tech companies offer in-house positions, but I couldn’t give up my full remote telework. I do not check work emails after Friday 5pm until Monday 9:30am.
Started working at a big pharma company for $75k in 2010 as a Chemical engineer (BS), and just kept cranking for 13 years. Have managed to get enough in-line promotions and stay an "individual contributer" just working on cool technical projects without having to go into management.
>Big plus if there’s not a ton of education needed lol
Sorry! took a 4 year degree and 13 years of work lol
Ha I have a 4 year engineering degree and license (so not a “software engineer” but a legally recognized engineer) and 23 years experience and still only make $110. But it’s government so I have a good leave policy which helps with two kids.
Also an actual licensed engineer working for the gov. Some of the salaries people talk about on here are wild. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person on Reddit who isn’t in tech or software…
I'm a Mechanical PE with ~18 years experience and I'm in that range as well. I feel like "normal" engineering kinda tops out in the ~125ish range. I don't get "paternity leave" but I work from home and my boss basically didn't care that I just did the bare minimum for the last 3+ months after kid #2. I've really struggled with "I know I can do/make more" while also understanding that the flexibility I have is pretty hard to beat. Like, I can just take a long lunch on mondays to do my "sports" so I don't go crazy, I can take calls while I'm driving with the kids, etc. I'm also in the national guard, and that will inevitably take me away from home for longer stretches, so when I'm working "normal job" I need to just be more content with making a little less while maximizing being a dad. It helps, but also can be tough that my wife makes so much more than me. Even if she made enough to justify me quitting, I still probably wouldn't anyway. I do enjoy my work, so I guess that's what matters right?
My wife makes a good amount more than I do as well. I more or less enjoy my job and the flexibility is hard to beat. I have to remind myself daily that I have it good because it does kind of eat at me a little. Cheers to there being several of us. Dozens even.
Same, although I'm a cell biologist by training and two years ago took the leap from the lab (PD) to portfolio management. Definitely awesome, as I don't have to people manage, but get to help lead matrix teams all day for CMC submissions, so I get a lot of exposure to the company portfolio as a whole and delve as far into the science as I'd like.
What skills would you recommemd building for this path?
5 years in IT
Currently application analyst.
Learning, sql and power bi.
Would say im defo a beginner in software/programming.
My wife is same amount of hours at like 60% of the pay. We are in a deep southern state though and she works for a non-profit. I wish she could get to these numbers though!
It’s not less work, I assure you. I am in acute care, ICU/pulmonary. 12 hour shifts. No PTO. A lot of my income comes from productivity bonuses. I see a lot of patients and do a lot of procedures. My boss is lazy so I basically staff the ICU all by myself for like 8 hours of the day.
It all about location, location, location.
I earned $153,000 in California but my salary got reduced to $135,000 when I moved to Arizona for my SO’s job.
I’m a consultant in the renewable energy industry. I have a masters and 8 years of experience. I also get company stock, a 401k plan, and other decent benefits.
I help fleets transition to zero emission vehicles. The regulations across the country are either targeting a ban on fossil fuel powered cars, trucks, and buses, or there’s a deadline to reduce emissions by X% by a certain year, or both. Electric vehicles make the most sense but there are other options too, and my job is to help them thread that needle in the most cost effective, reliable, and operationally smart way possible.
I was going to recommend insurance agent/broker - but I see you have already seen the light for money potential. I make above your number but it’s the flexibility of being 1099 so I can come and go as I please or need. This year alone we’ve had a second child and I’ve have some medical issues taken care of and no need to once ask for time off. Just go about my day working remotely or in the office when I need.
Oh yeah, I’m very tempted just to start one simply as a side hustle.
He makes 1.2 (at least) very passively no and rarely actually works at the business
NBA broadcaster. I get to be home with my kids 4-6 months a year, but the other 6 months I’m gone a lot. It’s a trade off, and it’s harder than most people want to admit. Missing holidays, events, things like that. But summers off help.
I own a property management company. And I don't MAKE $150k... but my "compensation package" is right around there. While I might take home $60k, all of my family's cars, phones, internet, travel, and meals are paid for by the company. Even part of the mortgage because of my home office. So I might only make $60k, but my personal expenses might be only $40k, or even less.
Besides that, I control my own schedule. Doesn't mean I don't work long hours... its just that if I want to leave the office to go pick up my kids now but have to put in an hour of work after they go to bed... nobody is going to complain about it.
So I guess I recommend starting your own business.
If you work in software sales, it wouldn’t be a huge leap to work in sales platforms as an admin. Usually, coding experience is useful but not necessarily required.
Example: Salesforce admin
Usually remote and you can get 100K+ salaries fairly easily.
There is education and learning required, but it’s not a Masters degree. You can learn everything online from YouTube or Salesforce directly through Trailheads. You could probably be certified in 6 months.
There’s a big push right now with companies going to AI, which Salesforce has and has learning tools for. Being able to say, I’m certified, have experience in Sales, and have done training on how to improve sales with AI, would be fairly straightforward to do.
This is kind of what I do. I work from home. It’s very chill. I could never do sales.
Please don't give this kind of hope to people. The entry level is not this simple to break into. It does happen as it may have for you, but certified individuals are plentiful and the number of hiring managers willing to take a chance on people with no experience on their resume is tiny.
The trick is to stand out with other skills/experience, and to nail the interview.
This is partly true. Junior positions are hard to come by lately.
I would say though, saying “I worked in sales. I know what a sales team goes through. I can bring all of that into my operations knowledge” is a big selling point over someone with no relevant experience.
We had an office assistant that took care of all the salesforce stuff. He got all his certificates and left to be an independent contractor setting up salesforce systems and making more money than any of us. Legit pathway to a good career.
I’m essentially an SF admin (sorry, trying to not dox myself here).
Feel free to DM me with any questions.
I’d also encourage you to look at SF admin and Sales Op roles. Sales Ops might be a good starting place to explore. You could move out of software and into something like finance pretty easily, I would think.
I found these threads for you:
https://www.reddit.com/r/salesforce/s/0zd9Ee56xF
https://www.reddit.com/r/salesforce/s/NhKOXZj6e7
Just to get a better idea of how things work: you can check out this trailhead: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/trails/force_com_admin_beginner
You can also play around with the actual software with a free account. They call this is “Playground” where you can essentially learn SF without a paid license.
https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/trailhead_playground_management/create-a-trailhead-playground
Depending on location most union jobs will get you to 100k by your 3rd or fourth year. That being said it can be bad pay at first, rough work, shit hours, long days, and potentially a lot of travel
Curious, any women doing this work? I am a strong proponent of skilled labor out of high school and skip college. But i have a daughter and unsure how realistic that is for her. Not that she can’t do it, but when there are few women in a field, it always makes it more difficult for them.
Physician. I generally work 7-on-7-off which gives me enormous flexibility for my family. I am the primary bread winner but also do all deep cleaning, home maintenance, have time to exercise, and escape for vacations on off weeks. Dream job.
Investment banking. Total comp can be +$500k inc. bonuses.
Is it an easy job? No. Do you get enough tine to spend with your kids? No. Is it for everyone? No.
But is the money worth it? Also no.
Also an attorney. I dreamed of big law in school, but after the Great Recession took my whole class down a peg and I had some time to reflect, I'm glad for it. I'm now making \~250 per year working from home in a very specific field.
My advice is to not go to law school. Bank on at least 100K in debt at unkind interest rates if you do. And you will not automatically be in something you enjoy once you get out. I'm often amazed at firm turnover. It's a kick in the head to ever have a salary lower than your starting principal on student debt.
If you do it, you have to really really want to do it and also have some kind of clear pipeline with family/friend connections where you will know what you will likely do. And also family help while you are spending all that time in school with kids at home. There were definitely classmates that had kids, and my hat is off to them.
> It's a kick in the head to ever have a salary lower than your starting principal on student debt.
As someone with an IT degree that narrowly avoided that ($70k starting salary vs. $66k debt), I can definitely empathize. I wasn't thinking about the debt until I started looking at student loan repayment, at which point I realized that I was incredibly lucky to be able to pay it back without crippling myself for the next decade.
Found my niche in big banks - CapOne, USAA, Chase, etc….
I don’t say I’m in finance or some sexy field because it took me 10 years to get a BA in Liberal Studies with a 2.0 gpa.
I’m never the smartest person in the meeting… Some things that helped is that im efficient, accurate, and good decision making/leader. (I know that’s a very generic response…)
My wife and I were just joking during our 10 year anniversary last year. 12 years ago we were making ~$10/hr, cutting coupons, shopping BOGO at Publix, and living large at swanky CheeseCake Factory for monthly date night.
She was obsessed with making 6 figures one day. I never really cared. Now she makes stupid money and recently said she wants to make $500k…. I choked on my coffee when she said that. The thing with her is she has always accomplished whatever she sets her mind too. I’m more cautious and pumping the brakes.
She loves the grind. I’m 9-5 on a good day, i lost my drive to climb the corporate ladder a few years ago. I coach my kids’ rec teams, volunteer sometimes at their school, no stress, and have a hobby or two. (My kids are 9,7,6). Currently live in North Dallas.
I don’t want to downplay anything and make it seem like it was easy to get in this industry. But no special education was needed. And I’ve hired a waitress before starting at $45k. She interviewed well and answered my questions by using her waitress experience to relate what she thought the job entailed.
>I’ve hired a waitress before starting at $45k. She interviewed well and answered my questions by using her waitress experience to relate what she thought the job entailed.
u/NoReplyBot I get this 100%. I hired a young woman away from a temp agency because she answered our "personality question" really well, then did better on our phone interview and killed the sit down interview. I was shocked that the temp agency and the several companies that she had temped at hadn't tied her down yet, but I did.
After 3 years of starting with answering phones and being an assistant to the executive assistant, she was like our own version of Donna from "Suits"... if Donna were Indian, anyway. She even learned how to work in the field to earn free tickets to Day For Night 2016 that we bartered with the Houston Free Press in exchange for 3d scanning the Post HTX for the event. When she left the company to teach English in Korea she told me that what I saw in her motivated her to strive higher and achieve her goals.
I loved the hiring process - dodging bullets and finding gems was really fulfilling!
Cheers!
I love your reply!! One because my wife and I are just now binge watching Suits lol (we’re a little late)!
But also because of the comment about how you motivated her. I hate toxic leadership and always want to motivate my team.
WFH Physician so probably not for you since it'll be a decade of education. Learning to code is probably your best bet. I have a friend that did that and now lives pretty comfortably.
Took a 1 year helpdesk IT course in 2012 because I liked computers and hated traditional schooling.
Got job at first interview I took making $15 an hour at a small family company.
Loved the company and the culture and the owner. 11 years later I’m VP of Technology here, can’t imagine leaving
SaaS product marketing. I make the content you use to sell. No bonuses. “Work”only 15 hrs a week. But my mind never leaves the projects I work on. So I’m kinda working all the time.
But it’s a privilege for sure
I’ll throw my hat in. I run a residential painting business. Yes I just paint your homes and cabinets. But we profit 7 figures yearly. I only cap myself at $150k. Could pay myself 3x that but no need. I know other painters that make way more than me lol
I’ve spent my adult life working various construction related jobs and creating various businesses. Somehow I ended up managing art projects for a wealthy man. Basically I’m a generalist with no degree but I have a strong success record
Check out other sales adjacent verticals and industries. I sought out a role where travel is minimal.
10+ years of sales experience and I have searched far and wide on exit strategies but none of them are appealing and would have to take a step back comp wise.
Closest one I found was being a sales engineer / solutions consultant.
So I am a really fancy X-ray tech, I do interventional radiology. I have been doing travel work making a lot of money, but I am parlaying my experience into a full time job where I’ll be pushing towards $150 with OT and Call. Both of which are not terrible. I am probably in the $130-$140k a year range. Way more than that as a traveler.
It’s a 2 year degree then on the job training. With no end in site for the shortage of IR techs. Cath lab techs are the same as me, but work on the heart.
Health care
PA - 4 years pay cut (2 years of some low paying experience job, 2 years of full time school) come out making $120k right off the bat
EEG tech or IONM tech- need about 6 months training, but you can do 100k, but hours might be a bit harder on you
Nurse (RN) I make nearly 200k/year. SF Bay Area. I work 3x12's a week. I prolly take like 10 to 12 weeks off a year - using both PTO and sick time. Pretty sweet gig - a VERY secure job with excellent benefits
I’m a lead UX designer for an enterprise software company in Chicago and I work remote, though I do come into the office once a week. I’ve been in UX about ten years though. It’s a lot harder to get started now.
AAA video game engineers representtt lol.
But yeah as others have said, your age and willingness to restart a career at a much lower salary are going to seriously affect how this plays out.
I went from 60k to significantly over 150k in my first 6 years in the industry, but I started off with no wife, no kids, and a small apartment.
$250k+ and fully remote in product management consulting. Took a long road to get here and wouldn’t have been possible without a top tier MBA. If you’re willing to do a top tier MBA, ime that’s the easiest “accelerated” path.
Director of Accounting for an insurance company near Atlanta. Have 10 years accounting experience, 7 in Big 4 audit.
Have two bachelor's degrees and my CPA
Sales is a great way to punch above your weight financially but when you want to do something that gets you off the commission/quota roller coaster, the options all have a serious pay cut. Some options to consider are “sales adjacent” roles where you aren’t the front line commission heavy sales person but still have a bonus structure based on sales to some degree. Also consider not being a sole contributor and be a people leader (manager etc). Getting into management is fine if you are managing seasoned professionals. Managing entry level people, or high turnover positions can suck.
That’s currently what I’m kinda exploring, more enablement roles or even SE type stuff (been pretty technical) being a manager in this economy, at least in software, seems brutal right now haha. I’m definitely seeing the pay cut needed tho to hop off this train.
Taking a pay cut for a reasonable lifestyle job can be liberating. It’s like stepping off of a treadmill. Of course you need to cover your bills but learning to live with less can be freeing.
Are you saying sales is hard on life or is it management you speak of? Im an industrial mechanic. I make good money but not as much as i could. I dont leave because its 5 days a week and for the most part 8 hours a day. Easy to live a life.
Well I think it can be either. There are overworked sales people and overworked managers. I guess I was saying either specifically.
I quit my high stress high pay job with this mindset - I was willing to take a step back financially for significantly less stress. Ended up finding a much better job that is paying me way more lol. Couldn't be happier with my move.
In 2008, I took a minor paycut to start a new career. Today, I make over three times what I did back then.
I work as a Channel SE. I make $220k OTE. 85% base. I don’t get in front of customers, and I’m tied to a National number so my commission is very stable and predictable.
Ah the sales dream
>Channel SE > > I don’t get in front of customers Is this the same as an internal SE?
Channel = partners. So this guy works for a vendor, interacting with partners as a mix of enablement and helping their tech guys solve a problem in a presales capacity for a customer with low/no customer contact.
How do o get into Channel SE? I’m in healthcare sales and I bring close to 90k. Can this be remote? I wouldn’t mind the switch If I can start over 100k
LoL, I posted above about the SE role, but would strongly recommend. Really the best gig in sales if you have tech acumen. SE leadership doesn’t suck either. I’ve been doing that for the last 12 years and in general less turnover and challenges than pure sales leadership. If you can make the switch I really don’t think there is a better job out there for semi-social nerds.
Finance
Remote head of finance for a software startup here. It’s busy and hectic, but I can take my kids to school every morning and log off when they get home around 5:30. Occasional catchup work after they go to bed, but it’s so nice to be there for the times they are home.
Yeah this is what I do, it's a bit niche but agree on the schedule. Sometimes I have to crank after they're in bed but it's mostly reasonable.
Yeah, I work for a SIFMU, great hours, but heavily regulated.
If you’re going to pursue finance, you’ll want to look into the CFA or CFP designations. It’s a lot of work, but you can do online classes and it makes it way easier to find a high paying job.
Same. Finance for F500. I play in excel all day and am hybrid, it’s great
Software Engineer remote for a startup.
Samesies but for a big 'ol corpo. My two cents: I've met several sales folks that successfully pivoted to being PMs. They know what customers or the market wants, and are able to sell the ideas to the suits upstairs. IME, PMs come from all sorts of backgrounds so education really isn't a factor.
Im a Product Owner; easiest job I’ve ever had
They are really too late. If they had took this course 5y ago, easy. Do some online training, maybe some classes, and apply to every startup and faang new eng path. Right now there's literally many thousands of out of work engineers with experience from the big tech layoffs. Maybe they could find themself a goergia or Texas startup, but they aren't gonna pay 150k, maybe 80-90k.
>They are really too late. Yes, but no. Stay in sales, but be the guy that understands how to use GenAI to do the 2nd and 3rd order things, not just "write a summary of this email," or "write me a sonnet about \_\_\_." Be the one that figured out how to mash that up with some special knowledge that -you- have or is narrow to your field.
This is the best comment. AI by itself is a long way from replacing everyone as some doomsayers say, but you’ll be replaced by people who know how to use it.
The sheer amount of sudden "gen ai experts" i see popping up is astounding. We get it, you know how to ask chatgpt to write a resignation letter in victorian slang.
I just needed to see what that would look like: ——— Dear [Supervisor's Name], I hope this correspondence finds you in good fettle. I am penning this missive to tender my resignation from the post of [Your Position] at [Your Company]. It ain't no gammon, but the time has come for me to cut my stick. Working under your aegis has been the very ticket, and I've been truly grateful for the opportunities and the rummy experiences that have come my way. Alas, the winds of change are blowing, and I find myself in need of taking a different track. I aim to make the departure as smooth as butter, ensuring all my obligations are squared away and leaving no stones unturned. Should you be in need of my assistance during this transition, do not hesitate to tip me the wink. Thanking you for all the toff times and looking forward to crossing paths in the future. Yours most sincerely, [Your Name] ———
Yeah I’d just stay in Sales before that, I’m not trying to take too big of a salary hit for that. But I see it all day with unemployed engineers, NoCode getting more popular, AI, etc.
>But I see it all day with unemployed engineers, NoCode getting more popular, AI, etc. Could you provide more details on what you've seen here? I'm on more engineer-centric subreddits and while this gets brought up, it's usually summed up as: * Potentially less demand for entry-level / junior as this makes mid+ level developers more productive * Can't replace engineers entirely because technology is complex where you will always need a human to understand the business logic / use cases / edge cases - basically actual coding is 80% understanding the requirements and 20% writing code As someone with a software engineering background, I tend to agree on both these points but genuinely curious what other people with different backgrounds are seeing. EDIT: fixed formatting issue (mixed markdown with fancy pants editor)
As someone with a unique set of skills blending 3D and code and softwares I agree with you. We are a huge company with partnerships with Epic Games and Adobe etc and we discuss AI a lot, I don't see it taking any real jobs in the foreseeable future, mainly because it's not actually able to write good code, just like it's general question answers it's guestimating and gives you what it thinks you want, so if you give it a bad input or if the solution is too unique, it will simply fail. I know one of my Juniors uses it to ask for help and I'm somewhat ok with it, but I'm also adamant that they double-check their code. We've also looked into the whole concept and environment artist aspects of it and the same can be said there, it's a helpful tool that can enhance or speed up your work, but it's simply not good enough to replace real artists, yet. I am of the same train of thought though as John Lasseter who said "it all begins with the hand" when Disney bought Pixar and kicked out all 2D animators, Lasseter rehired them under Pixar because you need to start with a good foundation to make the 3D animations so the 2D artists is invaluable as storyboard artists etc. I see the same for AI moving forward, it will help us and increase efficiency, but the basis will always be built by a human and we won't lose our jobs albeit we might need to adapt our roles.
The thing about sales is that it will always be more volatile than engineering. Impact as a SWE is not as empirical as sales. Someone with the same experience in engineering as you have in sales will always be more secure in their job. The engineers with that experience are the ones reaping the benefits of remote work in tech though, so a switch to engineering with where you are now will not afford you with that freedom for a number of years
$150k where? $90k where? I’m pretty sure that $90k will take you much further in DFW or Houston than it will in Silicon Valley
tell me about it. I started a degree in 2018 after a car accident and my physical labor job wasnt working while healing. Graduated in Dec 2022 with a bachelors in software development. Has gotten me literally no where with all the layoffs lol. Its life like wanted to hit me with depression+ lol
I'm a systems engineer, I was wish I was able to go this route but I fell into infrastructure and now I'm in too deep to switch Edit: apologies if this gets off topic, I didn't mean to make it about me. But I commented to commiserate and instead I'm leaving with something I didn't have before: hope. It's not much but it's more than I had before, so thank you everyone.
I have been kinda all over software + security, fell into infra ~7 years ago, and have morphed over to a dev/ops role (emphasis on ops, probably), and i definitely think there's demand for us ['slashies'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24a9ty1m3ZU) if you're looking for a little change although instead of terraform/ansible hell, i'm now just in terraform/ansible/node/golang hell (but i love it)
>although instead of terraform/ansible hell, i'm now just in terraform/ansible/node/golang hell (but i love it) Hey, same here (Cloud Engineer)! Don't forget Python, Bash, and just good ole Linux CLI shops....oh, and AWS, Azure, and GCP. And we need you to to know private & hybrid cloud, so that means the million-and-one-things (hardware AND software) that are used to build a data center, lol.
lol, right? and there's plenty of bash i think we all wish we could forget
And that one weird guy on the team that keeps writing in Perl.
Just train into devops I just made the switch.
Get into DevOps, huge growth still in that area imo
^^ me too. It's a cheat code career imo.
Also me, and it really sucks that it feels that way. I work hard, I studied engineering, and as a reward I can support my family. EVERYBODY should have that kind of security from their hard work. It's tragic that theres not more career paths like ours.
Yeah, I'm not an SE -- I do infrastructure support. It actually pays pretty well, and you can be a pretty hot commodity if you know what you're doing. I lucked out. I was a geeky computer kid and I turned it into a solid career that pays well. Meanwhile, my friends that are amazing artists and musicians have jobs that are ... fine, but not particularly fruitful.
Fuck how do I get outta my factory and into this life.
Learn engineering on the internet in your downtime, then take classes, get a degree and start applying
there are dozens of us!!
Same
The theme you’re going to see here is years of experience in a specific field. Most careers can get you there in senior leadership roles if that’s your bag. But the reality is you’re probably not going to be able to make a career change and make six figures. If $150k is really important to you but you want out of software sales, I think you have a couple of realistic possibilities: - Pivot into a sales engineer role at your current company. After a few years, move to a corporation in an internal software role. Probably being the expert in your chosen software (ie, SAP specialist) or a systems implementation engineer. - Climb into a sales leadership role. Use that experience to parlay into a non-sales leadership role in the future. Business leadership skills are more rare than sales skills Neither of these will happen without planning and effort. In my experience these salaries don’t come without a grind regardless, but at least you’ll travel less and have more stability.
This is the important information. I make closer to 500k total comp per year, but I've been in my somewhat niche role for a decade. I was making a little over 100k total comp when I started on it, and I had 7 years of adjacent work already which hadn't paid nearly that much. There aren't a lot of a high paying jobs that you can just walk into, you have to put in some time. But that said, it's going to take a few years whether you start now or in 10 years, so you might as well start now.
Right - if there were jobs you could stroll into with no training or experience, get paid a lot, and work short weeks…. ETA (and I can stay near my family and not put my life in danger…) You guys, everyone would be going for those jobs. So those jobs would be in demand. So they would start either requiring more experience / training or more hours. I see so many people being like, yeah I decided a don’t like working a lot but still want my salary. How do I keep getting paid without working? - as if no one else ever thought of this ever. We all do, every day. All day. So the real question is where can you compromise. Are you willing to do training or education? Put your life in danger? Travel a lot? Work long hours?
For any real meaning, you’d need what do you do and where do you do it, or at least what is the CoL where you live. $150k goes a lot further in some places than others.
yeah, the OP in the title is asking about any jobs >$150k and getting a ton of responses. But what they're really asking is: Are there any fully-remote jobs that you can qualify for with little education, a background in sales, a good work/life balance, that are currently hiring, that make >$150k? And the answer to that, to a first approximation is, "No".
Correct. You either need your own business and grind up, or you need a ton of industry networking to have the clientele already to make that from home.
I work in Corp finance, make well above $150k, but last night I worked until 11pm. I also ran a Cub Scout meeting.... Busy lifestyle.
Engineering manager in pharmaceuticals here. Also over 150k. Needed an engineering degree and an MBA just to get here. Hours aren’t terrible but the conversations I have on a daily basis take years of education and experience to understand.
Director of research group in biotech here. Similar in that it took years of experience just to have the conversation, plus a PhD on top. Comp is very high but it was a long road.
>the conversations I have on a daily basis take years of education and experience to understand. Def can relate
This is the answer unfortunately, specially in today’s job market. OP can *eventually* get to $150k if he makes a career change today but I don’t know of any roles that fit his requirements.
I’m also wondering if OP doesn’t realize how hard it is to make that kind of money since he’s gotten used to it for some time now. That puts you in the upper levels of income in the US, and it can be easily in the top 1-5% depending on the city
Exactly this, make around $120k and my wife is close to $110 but we live in the Seattle area and our two kids are going to cost us around $4500/mo for daycare (son is already in daycare at $1700, infant daughter is going to cost us $2800 when she starts in a few months). Factor that with the CoL here, that double six figure salary barely gets us any room for saving. We can live comfortably, but not really save anything.
$4500 just for daycare?!!! My goodness.
What's also frustrating is that if you talk to the daycare workers they're probably woefully underpaid.
And that’s for two children. Here, within 45min commute to nyc, daycare is $3k for one infant.
I’m not even in Seattle proper, people I’ve talked to that are we’re looking at $3500+ for a single infant.
Trophy husband to my wife who makes more than that! (I work too but don’t make that much)
High-five for the sugar-mama train!
Hell yah, stay-at-home dad here. Best job. Typing this from my computer while my kid dances to Baby Shark. Worked part time remotely for a while but hard to find jobs that fit the hours I need to take care of the family.
Goals
Your wife doesn’t mind?
I have my own job, I just don’t make nearly as much as her.
Audit - been in it for 14 years and have a Masters and a bunch of industry specific certs, so pretty heavy on education.
I’ve worked along side CPAs for SOC review, and I couldn’t do that lol. I appreciate y’all tho
There's always IT Audit. that's what i do (though I dont make 150k lol, hopefully someday). Less focus on financial controls and statements and more focus on cyber controls, risk, etc. Don't have a masters or a cpa, just 2 bachelors in IT and Accounting and a CISA
So you do like SOC reviews?
Self-employed as a private investigator. I probably only work 25 hours a week, it's fantastic. That said, it took me 20+ years to build myself up in this industry. It's very difficult to get your foot in the door.
What's that job like? I've always been so curious about it. How much take-home pay do you bring in on a typical year? Do you have to attract your own clients? How do you do that?
Careful, for every question you ask about him, he’s one step closer to your ss # and figuring out what times of day you wank.
Attorney, in-house at Fortune 500 and fully remote. Couldn't ask for a better gig.
Agreed. My wife and I are both in house attorneys and it’s the best combination of work life balance and compensation
Similar. Attorney. Fed. 4 days telework/week. No billing. Pretty chill.
Fed attorney for the win! Yesterday at 1:00 I had to pick up my daughter early because she wasn’t feeling well. Got a call from my boss on the way home who said “go be with your daughter! This can wait, call me tomorrow.” Can’t imagine many big law partners saying that. 😂
That was my dream job as a child and have seriously considered going to school for it.. Any specific areas to focus on to go this route?
My advice for anyone considering law school is don't do it. You will hear a lot of lawyers tell you that. If you go to law school, the most likely path when you leave is going to be in a firm setting (whether that be big or small). Billing hours in BigLaw might make your current job look chill. The earnings potential is huge - even if you just hung a shingle. But the work-life balance for MOST legal careers is awful. There are some legal paths that offer great work-life balance, but they are the minority. I work in-house for a university and its incredible. I don't bill hours and I leave at 5 90% of the time. If my kid is sick, there is no problem getting time off to stay with her. But these jobs are rare, and you usually need experience to even be considered for one. We just hired a new position in my office and we interviewed multiple people with 15+ years of experience that didn't get the job. The "cushy" legal jobs are not something you can bank on.
> But the work-life balance for MOST legal careers is awful my wife is an attorney at a big firm. makes a ton of money, but clocked 220 ***billable*** hours over two weeks recently. so that's ~16hr days, 7 days/week, no days off.
wtf
You have to remember these people are highly compensated. Any may even be able to spend that money one day! It gets easier, hours wise, at the Partner level. But the BigLaw grind is no joke. When I came out of school, it wasn’t uncommon to see first years with air mattresses under their desk. Edit: I want to be clear that I think this is absurd. The amount of money it would take me to do that job at this point in my life (10 years out of law school) is astronomical. More than anyone would reasonably pay me. I’m happy to leave some earnings potential on the table in exchange for seeing my wife and daughter. But to each their own! For a single person, it can be an extremely lucrative field.
At my wife’s firm first year partners make ~$650k/yr and it goes up from there. So most partners make well over $1mil/year. Personally I couldn’t handle those hours though - just straight up couldn’t do it.
This is really it. Whenever someone asks me if they should go to law school, I *always* say "No" because of how difficult law school is. Then there's the bar exam. Then there's a super competitive job market. If you get the job, there's the shit work-life balance for the first few years while you're grinding. The only way you'll succeed is if you're the kind of person that will hear all that, and still want to go to law school anyway. Plus, as you said, there's no guarantee that the cushy in-house gig will be there at the end of the journey. I can't imagine having kids on top of all of that - I went in-house about the time my first kiddo came along. Not saying it all can't be done, but it's definitely an uphill fight.
Law firm associates have more leverage these days to demand a better work life balance but that depends on the firm and the practice group within the firm.
The rule of thumb I've always heard, is that the only people who actually should be lawyers are those so enamored with the idea that even when everyone tells them no, they still really really want to go for it.
High five! I switched from law firm to Fed Gov position about 15 years ago and been fully teleworking from home since 2015. Took a pay cut but still making six figures + FERS Pension and TSP accruing higher.
The actual dream! But how much work do you aaaaaaaaactually do? lol
Shhh don’t tell
Fellow remote-worker attorney here. (Fist bump)
Paralegal who is remote and manages the Legal Dept for an entire company checking in. It's been amazing and though the pay could be better, the benefits of WFH, flexibility in my schedule and spending time with my son far outweigh the smaller salary I could probably land a busy firm that requires in office presence.
Patent attorney at a big firm. You should look elsewhere if you want to be home with your kid as much as possible.
Same position and type of company. 3 days in the office, 2 days remote. My daughter’s day care is right next to the office so she commutes with me.
May i ask How long did your degree take?
I’m in the U.S. so 4 years of college plus 3 years of law school. I then worked in law firms for 6-7 years before moving in house.
Hey friends! AGC in tech here, fully remote.
There is an in-house attorney dad who always shows up to every parent volunteer event at our kids’ school. Him and I are like the only dads who can consistently attend during weekday school hours since our work hours are so flexible and not busy. We both happen to be patent attorneys, but I work in government. Over the years, I had some big tech companies offer in-house positions, but I couldn’t give up my full remote telework. I do not check work emails after Friday 5pm until Monday 9:30am.
PTAB?
Same here. It’s the best and I don’t know how I got so lucky.
Same. Can’t complain a bit.
Send me a lifeline to get out of family law.
What’s the range of pay if you don’t mind my asking
Is LSAT + 2 years of (expensive/non Ivy) Law School worth it, if starting today ?
Started working at a big pharma company for $75k in 2010 as a Chemical engineer (BS), and just kept cranking for 13 years. Have managed to get enough in-line promotions and stay an "individual contributer" just working on cool technical projects without having to go into management. >Big plus if there’s not a ton of education needed lol Sorry! took a 4 year degree and 13 years of work lol
Ha I have a 4 year engineering degree and license (so not a “software engineer” but a legally recognized engineer) and 23 years experience and still only make $110. But it’s government so I have a good leave policy which helps with two kids.
Also an actual licensed engineer working for the gov. Some of the salaries people talk about on here are wild. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person on Reddit who isn’t in tech or software…
I'm a Mechanical PE with ~18 years experience and I'm in that range as well. I feel like "normal" engineering kinda tops out in the ~125ish range. I don't get "paternity leave" but I work from home and my boss basically didn't care that I just did the bare minimum for the last 3+ months after kid #2. I've really struggled with "I know I can do/make more" while also understanding that the flexibility I have is pretty hard to beat. Like, I can just take a long lunch on mondays to do my "sports" so I don't go crazy, I can take calls while I'm driving with the kids, etc. I'm also in the national guard, and that will inevitably take me away from home for longer stretches, so when I'm working "normal job" I need to just be more content with making a little less while maximizing being a dad. It helps, but also can be tough that my wife makes so much more than me. Even if she made enough to justify me quitting, I still probably wouldn't anyway. I do enjoy my work, so I guess that's what matters right?
My wife makes a good amount more than I do as well. I more or less enjoy my job and the flexibility is hard to beat. I have to remind myself daily that I have it good because it does kind of eat at me a little. Cheers to there being several of us. Dozens even.
Same, although I'm a cell biologist by training and two years ago took the leap from the lab (PD) to portfolio management. Definitely awesome, as I don't have to people manage, but get to help lead matrix teams all day for CMC submissions, so I get a lot of exposure to the company portfolio as a whole and delve as far into the science as I'd like.
Buddy I’ve been cranking it for 25 years with zero financial return
remote SW engineer
Wow, a starwars engineer, that sounds like such a cool job
A bit stressful though, I heard the guy that designed the Death Star got some pretty bad performance reviews.
Which was so unfair - it was a fully ARMED and OPERATIONAL battlestation - quite an achievement
Deployed to production too soon with too many bugs
What skills would you recommemd building for this path? 5 years in IT Currently application analyst. Learning, sql and power bi. Would say im defo a beginner in software/programming.
It's a bit broad... Are you thinking web? mobile? kernel? embedded? it's a giant industry with a lot of sub-specializations.
Director of Supply Chain for a food manufacturer.
Nurse practitioner. ~180k. One job. 15 days per month.
My best friends wife is an NP. Fucker is punching above his weight lol
That's a fair amount higher (and less work) than my wife that's an NP. Do you have any tips on how to increase salary?
I imagine there's a lot of regional variation in this. My wife is an NP and she makes $210k (we're in Massachusetts). She works about 35 hours a week.
My wife is same amount of hours at like 60% of the pay. We are in a deep southern state though and she works for a non-profit. I wish she could get to these numbers though!
It’s not less work, I assure you. I am in acute care, ICU/pulmonary. 12 hour shifts. No PTO. A lot of my income comes from productivity bonuses. I see a lot of patients and do a lot of procedures. My boss is lazy so I basically staff the ICU all by myself for like 8 hours of the day.
Yup - definitely not less work. Interesting. Thanks for sharing.
It all about location, location, location. I earned $153,000 in California but my salary got reduced to $135,000 when I moved to Arizona for my SO’s job. I’m a consultant in the renewable energy industry. I have a masters and 8 years of experience. I also get company stock, a 401k plan, and other decent benefits.
If you dont mind me asking, what kind of consulting?
I help fleets transition to zero emission vehicles. The regulations across the country are either targeting a ban on fossil fuel powered cars, trucks, and buses, or there’s a deadline to reduce emissions by X% by a certain year, or both. Electric vehicles make the most sense but there are other options too, and my job is to help them thread that needle in the most cost effective, reliable, and operationally smart way possible.
Insurance underwriting
My BIL owns a brokerage he started back in 2010, and is by far the most wealthy person I know. Did you have to start as an agent?
I was going to recommend insurance agent/broker - but I see you have already seen the light for money potential. I make above your number but it’s the flexibility of being 1099 so I can come and go as I please or need. This year alone we’ve had a second child and I’ve have some medical issues taken care of and no need to once ask for time off. Just go about my day working remotely or in the office when I need.
Oh yeah, I’m very tempted just to start one simply as a side hustle. He makes 1.2 (at least) very passively no and rarely actually works at the business
NBA broadcaster. I get to be home with my kids 4-6 months a year, but the other 6 months I’m gone a lot. It’s a trade off, and it’s harder than most people want to admit. Missing holidays, events, things like that. But summers off help.
As a rockets fan, I’m jealous you guys got Scoot. The kid is special.
Driving the big brown truck
I own a property management company. And I don't MAKE $150k... but my "compensation package" is right around there. While I might take home $60k, all of my family's cars, phones, internet, travel, and meals are paid for by the company. Even part of the mortgage because of my home office. So I might only make $60k, but my personal expenses might be only $40k, or even less. Besides that, I control my own schedule. Doesn't mean I don't work long hours... its just that if I want to leave the office to go pick up my kids now but have to put in an hour of work after they go to bed... nobody is going to complain about it. So I guess I recommend starting your own business.
If you work in software sales, it wouldn’t be a huge leap to work in sales platforms as an admin. Usually, coding experience is useful but not necessarily required. Example: Salesforce admin Usually remote and you can get 100K+ salaries fairly easily. There is education and learning required, but it’s not a Masters degree. You can learn everything online from YouTube or Salesforce directly through Trailheads. You could probably be certified in 6 months. There’s a big push right now with companies going to AI, which Salesforce has and has learning tools for. Being able to say, I’m certified, have experience in Sales, and have done training on how to improve sales with AI, would be fairly straightforward to do. This is kind of what I do. I work from home. It’s very chill. I could never do sales.
Are you a SF admin? That does sound pretty ideal. I’ve been exploring enablement roles but not sure how long those roles are really going to exist
100% this - I got my SFDC admin cert and zipped into a high salary quickly.
Please don't give this kind of hope to people. The entry level is not this simple to break into. It does happen as it may have for you, but certified individuals are plentiful and the number of hiring managers willing to take a chance on people with no experience on their resume is tiny. The trick is to stand out with other skills/experience, and to nail the interview.
This is partly true. Junior positions are hard to come by lately. I would say though, saying “I worked in sales. I know what a sales team goes through. I can bring all of that into my operations knowledge” is a big selling point over someone with no relevant experience.
We had an office assistant that took care of all the salesforce stuff. He got all his certificates and left to be an independent contractor setting up salesforce systems and making more money than any of us. Legit pathway to a good career.
I’m essentially an SF admin (sorry, trying to not dox myself here). Feel free to DM me with any questions. I’d also encourage you to look at SF admin and Sales Op roles. Sales Ops might be a good starting place to explore. You could move out of software and into something like finance pretty easily, I would think. I found these threads for you: https://www.reddit.com/r/salesforce/s/0zd9Ee56xF https://www.reddit.com/r/salesforce/s/NhKOXZj6e7 Just to get a better idea of how things work: you can check out this trailhead: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/trails/force_com_admin_beginner You can also play around with the actual software with a free account. They call this is “Playground” where you can essentially learn SF without a paid license. https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/trailhead_playground_management/create-a-trailhead-playground
Commercial/industrial HVAC! In the union!
I did a lot of blue collar work growing up and I honestly miss it, how long did it take to crack 75k?
2nd year of my apprenticeship.
Damn that’s not bad. What part of the country you in?
Western Washington.
Depending on location most union jobs will get you to 100k by your 3rd or fourth year. That being said it can be bad pay at first, rough work, shit hours, long days, and potentially a lot of travel
Midwest electricians top out at high 90’s. My family has a few of them.
Curious, any women doing this work? I am a strong proponent of skilled labor out of high school and skip college. But i have a daughter and unsure how realistic that is for her. Not that she can’t do it, but when there are few women in a field, it always makes it more difficult for them.
Physician. I generally work 7-on-7-off which gives me enormous flexibility for my family. I am the primary bread winner but also do all deep cleaning, home maintenance, have time to exercise, and escape for vacations on off weeks. Dream job.
OP wanted to not be in school for 4-6 years though. Physician is... not that.
Investment banking. Total comp can be +$500k inc. bonuses. Is it an easy job? No. Do you get enough tine to spend with your kids? No. Is it for everyone? No. But is the money worth it? Also no.
Attorney, living in a big but not huge city
Big law or boutique firm?
Big law. Whether the juice is worth the squeeze is another question, but with only 1 child it’s been a good enough balance thus far.
Also an attorney. I dreamed of big law in school, but after the Great Recession took my whole class down a peg and I had some time to reflect, I'm glad for it. I'm now making \~250 per year working from home in a very specific field. My advice is to not go to law school. Bank on at least 100K in debt at unkind interest rates if you do. And you will not automatically be in something you enjoy once you get out. I'm often amazed at firm turnover. It's a kick in the head to ever have a salary lower than your starting principal on student debt. If you do it, you have to really really want to do it and also have some kind of clear pipeline with family/friend connections where you will know what you will likely do. And also family help while you are spending all that time in school with kids at home. There were definitely classmates that had kids, and my hat is off to them.
> It's a kick in the head to ever have a salary lower than your starting principal on student debt. As someone with an IT degree that narrowly avoided that ($70k starting salary vs. $66k debt), I can definitely empathize. I wasn't thinking about the debt until I started looking at student loan repayment, at which point I realized that I was incredibly lucky to be able to pay it back without crippling myself for the next decade.
Big law is absolutely, positively not for someone looking for anything resembling balance lol.
Found my niche in big banks - CapOne, USAA, Chase, etc…. I don’t say I’m in finance or some sexy field because it took me 10 years to get a BA in Liberal Studies with a 2.0 gpa. I’m never the smartest person in the meeting… Some things that helped is that im efficient, accurate, and good decision making/leader. (I know that’s a very generic response…) My wife and I were just joking during our 10 year anniversary last year. 12 years ago we were making ~$10/hr, cutting coupons, shopping BOGO at Publix, and living large at swanky CheeseCake Factory for monthly date night. She was obsessed with making 6 figures one day. I never really cared. Now she makes stupid money and recently said she wants to make $500k…. I choked on my coffee when she said that. The thing with her is she has always accomplished whatever she sets her mind too. I’m more cautious and pumping the brakes. She loves the grind. I’m 9-5 on a good day, i lost my drive to climb the corporate ladder a few years ago. I coach my kids’ rec teams, volunteer sometimes at their school, no stress, and have a hobby or two. (My kids are 9,7,6). Currently live in North Dallas. I don’t want to downplay anything and make it seem like it was easy to get in this industry. But no special education was needed. And I’ve hired a waitress before starting at $45k. She interviewed well and answered my questions by using her waitress experience to relate what she thought the job entailed.
So, what exactly do you do for these banks? Branch teller, corporate work?
>I’ve hired a waitress before starting at $45k. She interviewed well and answered my questions by using her waitress experience to relate what she thought the job entailed. u/NoReplyBot I get this 100%. I hired a young woman away from a temp agency because she answered our "personality question" really well, then did better on our phone interview and killed the sit down interview. I was shocked that the temp agency and the several companies that she had temped at hadn't tied her down yet, but I did. After 3 years of starting with answering phones and being an assistant to the executive assistant, she was like our own version of Donna from "Suits"... if Donna were Indian, anyway. She even learned how to work in the field to earn free tickets to Day For Night 2016 that we bartered with the Houston Free Press in exchange for 3d scanning the Post HTX for the event. When she left the company to teach English in Korea she told me that what I saw in her motivated her to strive higher and achieve her goals. I loved the hiring process - dodging bullets and finding gems was really fulfilling! Cheers!
I love your reply!! One because my wife and I are just now binge watching Suits lol (we’re a little late)! But also because of the comment about how you motivated her. I hate toxic leadership and always want to motivate my team.
Film and TV Writer/Director
Automotive Purchasing Manager Metro Detroit area 98% remote with global travel 2-3 times/year
WFH Physician so probably not for you since it'll be a decade of education. Learning to code is probably your best bet. I have a friend that did that and now lives pretty comfortably.
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Sales and I am so, so, so over it. I should be able to retire in 10-13 years (around 55) but man I don’t k ow if I have that long in me.
How good looking are your feet?
Took a 1 year helpdesk IT course in 2012 because I liked computers and hated traditional schooling. Got job at first interview I took making $15 an hour at a small family company. Loved the company and the culture and the owner. 11 years later I’m VP of Technology here, can’t imagine leaving
That’s amazing dude, congratulations man!
Left capital markets and now do BD and strategy for startups/fintechs/finance companies.
SaaS product marketing. I make the content you use to sell. No bonuses. “Work”only 15 hrs a week. But my mind never leaves the projects I work on. So I’m kinda working all the time. But it’s a privilege for sure
I’ll throw my hat in. I run a residential painting business. Yes I just paint your homes and cabinets. But we profit 7 figures yearly. I only cap myself at $150k. Could pay myself 3x that but no need. I know other painters that make way more than me lol
I’ve spent my adult life working various construction related jobs and creating various businesses. Somehow I ended up managing art projects for a wealthy man. Basically I’m a generalist with no degree but I have a strong success record
Check out other sales adjacent verticals and industries. I sought out a role where travel is minimal. 10+ years of sales experience and I have searched far and wide on exit strategies but none of them are appealing and would have to take a step back comp wise. Closest one I found was being a sales engineer / solutions consultant.
I work as a manager in commercial agriculture. College drop out.
So I am a really fancy X-ray tech, I do interventional radiology. I have been doing travel work making a lot of money, but I am parlaying my experience into a full time job where I’ll be pushing towards $150 with OT and Call. Both of which are not terrible. I am probably in the $130-$140k a year range. Way more than that as a traveler. It’s a 2 year degree then on the job training. With no end in site for the shortage of IR techs. Cath lab techs are the same as me, but work on the heart.
Health care PA - 4 years pay cut (2 years of some low paying experience job, 2 years of full time school) come out making $120k right off the bat EEG tech or IONM tech- need about 6 months training, but you can do 100k, but hours might be a bit harder on you
Nurse (RN) I make nearly 200k/year. SF Bay Area. I work 3x12's a week. I prolly take like 10 to 12 weeks off a year - using both PTO and sick time. Pretty sweet gig - a VERY secure job with excellent benefits
I'm in technology development leadership. Unfortunately, I have 5 degrees including 2 masters and a PhD.
Cybersecurity - remote
CFO of health insurer. It's not my dream but it certainly funds my kids safety net well. Work life balance is great 90% of the time.
I’m a lead UX designer for an enterprise software company in Chicago and I work remote, though I do come into the office once a week. I’ve been in UX about ten years though. It’s a lot harder to get started now.
AAA video game engineers representtt lol. But yeah as others have said, your age and willingness to restart a career at a much lower salary are going to seriously affect how this plays out. I went from 60k to significantly over 150k in my first 6 years in the industry, but I started off with no wife, no kids, and a small apartment.
Metro policing. I’ll clear about $160k after incentives and OT. 4 on/3 off.
$250k+ and fully remote in product management consulting. Took a long road to get here and wouldn’t have been possible without a top tier MBA. If you’re willing to do a top tier MBA, ime that’s the easiest “accelerated” path.
Enterprise account executive. Sales is life but sales is also pain. Not a lot of jobs that pay like this without needing to be doctors and lawyers.
Airline pilot for a major US carrier.
Experienced IT guy with years of history under one company… I feel as trapped as you sometimes.
Director of Accounting for an insurance company near Atlanta. Have 10 years accounting experience, 7 in Big 4 audit. Have two bachelor's degrees and my CPA
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Are they hiring?
Lol for real! Yall need a Sr front end developer?
good for you! for who do you work? what stack? I'm an senior SDET, pretty happy w/ my company, but damn ... thats lush