Comment by raw_anon_1111
16 days ago
That’s not age discrimination. Either you can not work and have an income of $0 or get paid what the market is telling you you’re worth.
For context I’m 51. I’ve made the trade off of making less than I hypothetically could if I worked at larger companies/BigTech (been there done that got the t-shirt for almost four years until 2023).
I have no issues getting paid my rates which is what I am worth (one of the most important careeer things I advise youngsters is to know what they are worth, the sooner you know the better).
while this is certainly not age discrimination I was just making a point that what sometimes looks like age discrimination it may not actually be that.
and most of the good money is definitely not in “big tech” (though too many people in our industry think that…)
This is absolutely terrible advice mathematically for anyone. If you aren’t working at all, every month that you aren’t working, you have to make 1/12 more for the rest of the year to make up the difference. Take any job that will pay you and keep interviewing. I realize this is much easier working and interviewing remotely
Where exactly besides BigTech and equivalent can a college grad make $170K+ straight out of college and easily make $1 million gross in 4 years with one promotion?
Youngsters aren’t “worth” much of anything. They do negative work starting out.
> This is absolutely terrible advice mathematically for anyone.
I apologize if I sounded like I am pitching people should stay un-employed, I re-read my comment and I don’t think that I did. I would probably take lower paying job temporarily (not at this point in my career but when I was younger). however though, the 1/12 or 1/6 or 3/12 might sound significant but taking below-your-worth will probably end up worse in the long run if you stay long enough
> … easily make $1 million gross in 4 years with one promotion?
I think you are talking outliers and not for majority, not everyone working in “big tech” will make a mill in 4 years. but to answer your question, I made more in my first 4 years (not even inflation-adjusted) and this is 1999-2003. you can do it in several ways, the two I would recommend:
1. government contracting for a year or two (work your ass off and make top govies happy) then going solo or start your own firm when the contract is up
2. find a company that has been in the business for say 20+ years and has been profitable and has no more than 150 employees. in the first 1-2 years work your ass off and specifically volunteer to work on the worst shit most shy away from, the hardest problems, the worst parts of the codebase, ones that say // do not touch this, no one knows how it works. after some time it’ll be you that everyone turns to when hard problems need to be solved and further you will reach a point where you are more valuable to the company than company is to you. there may be a handful of such people in “big tech” (if that). once you get there you can go 1099 and charge just about anything you want.
overall, treat your self as corporation and every employment not as “I am slaving away for ____” but partnership between two corporations and career gets a lot better than working at “big tech”
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