Are six figure salaries an american thing? I see people saying "Entry level jobs are paying up to 60k" which is just crazy money!
I have worked for the past 7 years as IT within the UK education sector and expect my salary to be lower than that of industry but I am not even making half that!
I work in an international company and it is very difficult to compare EU to US, our US employees are on average 1.5x more expensive but, with that money they have to pay for more expensive healthcare with poorer coverage, and to get their kids to a good school they need to live in very expensive neighborhoods. For us in the Netherlands school quality is roughly homogeneous and when you get cancer you will never see a bill or suffer financially.
But 30k at 7 years of experience in IT is pretty low if you ask me (we’re talking before tax right?), for us that would be called "modal", about what a nurse or police officer would make?
I work in the Netherlands (large healthcare company) and make about 100k (12 years of experience after my PhD), however, I think my company pays quite well and when applying at other places I'd get about 85-90k? Depending on the company, larger is higher I think.
The way to a higher pay (but higher risk) for me is becoming independent I think. Then I'd probable be able to ask for 150 an hour (as consultant/sw dev). This be fore tax, no pension etc.
It's the hedonic treadmill effect. People here in SF making $200K are looking around feeling like they are probably underpaid compared to friends at other companies. Also finance/law can pay a fuck-ton too, but you have to work crazy hours. Have a friend who just turned 29 pulling down $500K in PE, but works like 80-100 hour weeks. At some point that's just a bad use of your finite time. Have also had friends walk away with millions after an IPO.
Not really sure if there's a larger point other than to say that there's always a tier of people above you making more money, so don't let it get you down.
Yes, they are an American thing. These salaries (or a decent percentage of them) are open to you in the UK, but you'll need to work remotely, probably for a US-based company. This may mean contracting.
Because some component of tech work usually needs to be synchronous, I'd suggest picking a company where most of the people are on Eastern or Central time -- for me at least, MT and PT feel just that little bit too far. If you're a night owl, that might not matter to you.
I have worked for the past 7 years as IT within the UK education sector and expect my salary to be lower than that of industry but I am not even making half that!