I'm an 8 year data center network engineer who recently broke 100k for the first time. When I got asked my salary requirements I actually only asked for 90k as my highest previous salary was 80k with lots of travel, then I found out they gave me 100k because it was the minimum they could pay someone in my position. I've read before about people making crazy salary increases (150%-300%) and am wondering if I played it incorrectly and how I could play it in the future. I plan to stay with my company for the next few years and upskilling heavily and am eyeing a promotion in my first year as I've already delivered big projects by contributing very early. I've progressed from call center/help desk/engineer etc (no degree, just certs) so my progression has been pretty linear, are people who are seeing massive jumps in pay just overselling their competency and failing forward? Or are there other fields in IT like programming/etc that are more likely to have higher progression scales?

  • thisisnotgoingwell@programming.dev
    ·
    1 year ago

    Dang, I thought it was easier to break into programming. Did you have any formal education? I totally felt that, I had to climb through the ranks one painful step at a time.

    • railsdev@programming.dev
      ·
      1 year ago

      I basically started learning HTML, CSS, JavaScript in my free time when I was like 10. I lived in the middle of nowhere and had tons of time. I eventually moved onto PHP then Ruby on Rails.

      Because I didn’t have the proper experience/education, I was never seriously considered for any tech jobs. Basically I ended up building systems for places I worked at. One day while working in a warehouse the owner of another company we worked with offered me a job on the down low.

      While working there I realized I could automate like 70% of my job and realized they were spending thousands of dollars on a system that hardly did anything.

      I moved onto a small but highly profitable company but ended up leaving because the pay was terrible and my boss started cussing me out for stuff.

      So finally last year I landed a web developer job at a “real” company, the one job still uses my web application to run their business and things are good. If only I could get more customers for my side business…