How do all of you make these $200k salaries???

[Anonymous]

Work as a govt project manager for a technical agency (NIST), making about $150k.

Everything is so expensive, from housing, to saving for college, to daycare. DW is in a good paying job that she loathes and I can tell she dies each day dropping off kids at daycare every morning.

I have applied to dozens of jobs, had 2 dozen interviews, and receive probably a dozen offers, and NONE of them pay anymore than I make now.

How do people make the leap to a bigger salary; for DW to quit I need to make at least $250k, but I can't even break $200k?

I'm mid-career, late 30s with some programming skills, project management, and domain knowledge in our contract specialty at NIST (so it's pretty niche). Do I need to get an advanced degree? Get an MBA?

I would love to get a sales engineer job, I think I would be a good fit as someone who is technically proficient and personable, but no bites and all the postings look for existing sales engineer experience. Am I wrong in thinking that could pay more than $200k (at like Salesforce or Google or something?).

I know many people must be making these numbers, as we see people buying crazy expensive houses and the wives SAH or have part time yoga gigs. But what I am doing wrong?

[Anonymous]

bump! What do you all do? How old are you? How can I follow your path

[Anonymous]

My ex husband stole from his company together with mistress, opened dozens of off-shore accounts and companies on her name, directing her consulting projects. Avoided disclosure by settling with me, giving away a business project we jointly owned. Everyone got rich as a result of the divorce. His off shore company is worth $40mm

[Anonymous]

H is in pharma sales and I'm a 15 equivalent at a fed agency on a different pay scale. Some of my friends are lawyers and doctors. I bet we pay our IT contractors over 200K/year. Do you have your PMP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:H is in pharma sales and I'm a 15 equivalent at a fed agency on a different pay scale. Some of my friends are lawyers and doctors. I bet we pay our IT contractors over 200K/year. Do you have your PMP?

No, but I will get a PMP happily. I've done some coursework, it seems like a diploma mill cert to some degree. Would it really help?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:H is in pharma sales and I'm a 15 equivalent at a fed agency on a different pay scale. Some of my friends are lawyers and doctors. I bet we pay our IT contractors over 200K/year. Do you have your PMP?

SEC? CFPB? Sweet gigs for both of you

[Anonymous]

We don’t work for the govt and gave advanced degrees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don’t work for the govt and gave advanced degrees.

I have a Masters in Engineering, are you talking about professional degrees like MBA, Law, MD?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don’t work for the govt and gave advanced degrees.

In case it as unclear, I am applying for jobs well outside of the govt, I only ended up in DC bc of DW's grad degree.

[Anonymous]

Move to project management in tech. FAANG companies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Move to project management in tech. FAANG companies.

I have applied nonstop to the FAANG, the only one I hear back from (and keep hearing from) is Amazon, but they have a $180k salary cap, and you are really dependent on the stock rising. And of course the 4 year cliff; should I get one of those "how to apply to google" books, which I am so skeptical of but I'm desperate. I mean, I have an Ivy league degree, but have been such an rube engineer from the sticks I've just never had my career take off.

[Anonymous]

I work in tech. I'm 34.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Move to project management in tech. FAANG companies.

I have applied nonstop to the FAANG, the only one I hear back from (and keep hearing from) is Amazon, but they have a $180k salary cap, and you are really dependent on the stock rising. And of course the 4 year cliff; should I get one of those "how to apply to google" books, which I am so skeptical of but I'm desperate. I mean, I have an Ivy league degree, but have been such an rube engineer from the sticks I've just never had my career take off.

I'm the 22:53 PP. Will the Amazon job give you the experience to get to a 200+K one? Your Ivy should have people working at Google, mine does. Work those connections.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work in tech. I'm 34.

So are you a full stack engineer at a FAANG, or IT specialist at a local tech company? Any recommendations on how to get there from where I am? I've thought of getting a Github profile, brushing up on some node.js and python and making a small portfolio of simple projects. Or is that a waste of time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Move to project management in tech. FAANG companies.

I have applied nonstop to the FAANG, the only one I hear back from (and keep hearing from) is Amazon, but they have a $180k salary cap, and you are really dependent on the stock rising. And of course the 4 year cliff; should I get one of those "how to apply to google" books, which I am so skeptical of but I'm desperate. I mean, I have an Ivy league degree, but have been such an rube engineer from the sticks I've just never had my career take off.

I'm the 22:53 PP. Will the Amazon job give you the experience to get to a 200+K one? Your Ivy should have people working at Google, mine does. Work those connections.

Yeah, I know plenty of people there as friends, but they haven't worked with me in any meaningful way except college over a decade ago. Do people really network that way? They really have no idea about my work career?