Employment > $100K

Austin, TX

CPA, working in private industry

Yes, most of the time

- NYC

- Senior copywriter at a large ad agency

- I love my job!

if you're willing to travel, and have a high-demand skill (I/T especially), $100K is easy, really easy with a big firm or good contacts. if you're top notch, $200K is attainable.

if you're willing to travel, your weekdays are in big cities and hotels and restaurants, on the client's dime. and your weekends are wherever you want, stretching those dollars out to the point that it only takes a couple years of this to attain a great deal of savings if you're smart about it.

Ohio

Buy, remodel, and sell houses.

I love my work. Two or three months off every winter. Work anytime I want. No employees to worry about.

Civil Engineer in environmental consulting. Seven years into my career. 111K including bonuses and profit sharing. First year in the six figures. I live in San Francisco though so it doesn't go far. I'm hoping to rent a two bedroom apartment soon so I can have a home office and maybe even buy a used car.

but now how did you get to that point?

roadie wrote:

if you're willing to travel, and have a high-demand skill (I/T especially), $100K is easy, really easy with a big firm or good contacts. if you're top notch, $200K is attainable.

if you're willing to travel, your weekdays are in big cities and hotels and restaurants, on the client's dime. and your weekends are wherever you want, stretching those dollars out to the point that it only takes a couple years of this to attain a great deal of savings if you're smart about it.

I can vouch for this. I've been working 12 years, never made less than $100k, had some years over $200k, and can make over $300k if I want to go somewhere austere. My living expenses have been paid for 12 years and most of the money is in the bank.

Sometimes I love my job and sometimes I hate my job but I always appreciate my job.

Right now I am working in DC.

What exactly in IT do you guys do? Programming? Engineering? Systems administrator? ????

I'm just curious where the good money is (which you guys seem to be making).

curiousgeorge wrote:

What exactly in IT do you guys do? Programming? Engineering? Systems administrator? ????

I'm just curious where the good money is (which you guys seem to be making).

Systems Engineering

Broadband line of sight communications

Satellite communications

Network Administration

Managed the communications section of a USAF detachment (handheld radios, HF radios, local network, phones, long haul network, secure phones, comsec, pretty much everything). Rebuilt the entire base with the 3 guys who worked for me (great learning experience and good for the resume). Made budget decisions and researched new technologies (basically anything that was new and hot they wanted to know if it was useful to them). We had lots of money to burn so I bought all kinds of shit; the base is probably more switched on than any other place I've been.

I can also program at a professional level but I don't do it in this job.

I work in the field. That's how you get your living expenses paid. You've got to be willing to move at a moment's notice. Many times I picked up and moved my whole life on 24 hours notice (it helps to travel light). For the first 10 years, the longest I was in one location was 13 months and the average was 6 months (yeah, I lived in over 20 places). You tend not to develop serious relationships. I worked 84 hours a week for about 3 years straight. It wasn't as bad as it sounds but I wasn't running during those years...

Never turn down an assignment, especially if it is in an area about which you know little. When you are under the gun you have no choice but to learn what you need to know. After switching between different fields several times early on, I stopped fearing being thrust into an unfamiliar situation. Then my company started sending me on purpose to jobs where the situation was dicey because they knew I would come through.

Get a high level security clearance. A recent article (I think it was the Washington Post) said this is way more valuable than an MBA. There is massive demand for cleared IT guys. I could probably get more money if I was willing to job hop but I've been loyal to my company so far. Plenty of guys with weaker resumes than mine make nearly as much money.

The other thing about IT is that nobody knows it all. Especially with systems. Often there is some mysterious device that nobody knows anything about and they hope it won't break. If you can figure out how that device works (it usually takes less than a week), everyone thinks you are some kind of hypergenius. Many IT guys are lazy so I did not find it hard to excel (I thank the discipline gained from running for this).

ohhhyeah wrote:

but now how did you get to that point?

B.S. in Civil Engineering. Went back to school part time for my M.Eng. in Environmental Engineering while working (took 4 years). Took the EIT and PE over the last two years. Three jobs total over seven years. First for a government agency as a regulator(1.5 years), next two at two different consulting companies (3.5 years and 2 years at each).

The big raises came each time I switched jobs, right after my masters, and right after my PE. I worked hard over the course of my career to build contacts and create a network. I think that network helped a lot with the last big raise when I changed jobs two years ago and will help in the future when I eventually go out on my own.

Thanks for the info/advice. Very helpful. The military isn't my thing, but it sounds like you made the big bucks working for them. Must be fun to play with all those high teach gadgets.

What is your educational background? Electrical Engineering? Computer science?

Also, for the civil/envir engineering guys, how do you like your work? What do you DO on a day to day basis? Sit at the computer? Travel to construction site? Manage subordinates? Just trying to get a better feel for the profession.

I am an engineering student who still is at a point where I can decide which "branch" to go in to. I hope to end up in a career where I can develop solutions to improve the our planet's air/water/atmosphere/etc. Any input, ideas, experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Also, do you guys work for BIG or small companies? Which do you like better?

Thanks again IT guy!

I have a BS in Electrical Engineering. I focused on digital design because that was most interesting to me, but I also knew I would be working in this field so I took extra electives in Microwave Engineering and Communication Systems. I didn't use much of my engineering knowledge for the first few years though, I just got by on common sense and knowing the probability of certain failures (you can learn this by keeping a log and observing how often things crap out).

My father taught me how to program when I was very young, including some simple machine language programs but nothing heavy. He used to pay me to convert binary numbers to octal and hex for some project he was doing (or maybe he just made that up to get me to do it). So I got comfortable with digital logic and programming at an early age. I messed around with it for a while in jr high but it pretty much went out the window when I started doing track. I've always been a good programmer but did not have a formal programming education until recently when I did a certificate program in C++ (I studied it exclusively for 2 1/2 years). Next I will work on a masters in telecommunications. I do most of my studying at work.

I also will read a book about an engineering subject if I don't know what I need to know. I worked SATCOM for about 4 years and knew how to do everything but I didn't know any of the technical terms or the underlying math. Then I had to work with a couple dicks who were dropping all these terms trying to make my look stupid so I bought a book and pretty much all of that stuff was in chapter 1 so after about 2 weeks (when I made it through chapter 3) I was able to make those guys look like fools. Usually you can stay ahead in my job just by continuing to learn since people making fat money tend to get very lazy.

Before I started this I had a negative view of working for the military. I have nothing against the military because both of my parents worked for military contractors, I just thought the commercial high tech world was much more exciting. But I took this job because right out of school I was making $100k a year, when most of my classmates were working for $35k. I was lucky to work on some very interesting projects early on, and then several challenging assignments. Every few years I get an assignment that is a total dud (nothing to do at work) so I usually increase my efforts in school during those times.

I am biding my time trying to learn as much as I can in hopes that when I go to school for my masters I will see a niche technology that can be turned into a hot business. Then I can start my own company and make some real big money. If that fails, hey, I've still got a job that pays well...

Seattle, WA, Tax Accountant, and yes I enjoy my work.

curiousgeorge wrote:

What exactly in IT do you guys do? Programming? Engineering? Systems administrator? ????

I'm just curious where the good money is (which you guys seem to be making).

Consulting.

For infrastructure (network, server) you've got to be really good (and have credentials and a reputation) or go overseas to go over $200K. that's my area and i've been over $200K for 9 yrs straight. i sleep at home far more nights than not. haven't moved in 20 yrs.

i work with guys back from afghan or iraq contracting who pulled in over $400K last year, but there are some risks involved with that, eh?

For applications/integration work, SAP/Peoplesoft or SOA work will get you there. Programming and Microsoft is less likely to. But you're more likely to be a Mon-Fri traveller to the same place for months or years on end.

Boston

Investment Management Support (i.e., not a portfolio manager, but an executive nonetheless).

Mid-100s + up to 1/3 bonus

*not* unusual for this field... Business developers (sales force) make *much* more than that.

Love my firm; enjoy my work; flexible schedule; running around 60 MPW, sometimes a.m., sometimes lunch, sometimes p.m.

It's a good life.

Whaddya gadda doo? Speak-y Engliz-y and be facile wid da math'l. Being clean-n-shiny helps, too.

Just got a relative a job--new college grad w/entry level job with affiliate firm for $40k+bonus. She's happy enough.

hey CFA, what company do you work for? i've been out of school a year in Boston and have been working in fund accounting and am trying to make the jump to your type of company. any chance you could send me an email address so i could ask a few questions? thanks!

For the talkative IT nerds I recommend a career in IT / Technology presales. With bonus sharing and quota accelerators, you can make a crapload. I used to do this in my mid-20s (31 now) and did quite nicely (~105k).

Portland, Oregon. Work in Vancouver, Washington. Attorney. Yes, I enjoy it.

Boston. Software sales. Yes.